B )   M A R C H , 1 9 4 3   -   E S C A P E ,   T U R B L U T   K U N H K U

Peter Hesselbach’s notebooks contain a large chronological gap between his near-death from typhus in a Russian POW camp and his appearance at a Buryat settlement on the Indigirka River several months later, causing some speculation that he somehow flew across the tableland in a stolen airplane or improvised glider. However, with the advent of aerial surveys, it was discovered in 1957 that there is a single river, known to the Buryat as the Chibagalakh, that drains this vast area into the Indigirka. This steep-sided valley is under partial cultivation by a small tribal population that occupies it during the growing season. In theory, if a man somehow found a way down the 300 ft. palisades that form the valley’s head, he could travel down river in a small boat, resupplying himself at farms along the way, and eventually arrive at a Buryat settlement at the confluence of the two rivers. And indeed, when this valley was finally explored, its residents still remembered the day a winged white man appeared on the river, floating downstream on a raft constructed of inflated pig skins and twigs. No man had ever descended into the gorge from the desolate turblut kunhku, the roof of the world. (see plate 26 text)