Nanga Parbat

Nanga Parbat is much favoured by most climbers, but it were the Germans, who gave it the name, killer Mountain. The explorer, Albert Frederick Mummery, was the first to venture on this mountain. Daunting and wild, bearing the onslaught of gnawing wind and torrential rain during the monsoons, Nanga Parbat is full of the dangers of the unknown. The Sherpas, localites of the Himalayan region call Nanga Parbat, “the man-eater” or the ‘Mountain of the Devil’. No other peak has claimed lives with such sickening regularity and the list of tragedies is heart-wrenching. In the last century, roads have been built in the Karakoram range, but little else has changed in this region.

Nanga Parbat has a height of 8126 meters/26,660 ft. It has three vast faces. The Rakhiot (RaiKot) face, world’s deepest gorge (1000m), is dominated by the north and south silver pinnacle and silver plateau; the Diamir face is rocky in the beginning. It converts itself into ice fields around Nanga Parbat peak. The Rupal face is the highest rockwall in the world.

Nanga Parbat peak was discovered in the 19th century by Europeans. The Schlagintweit brothers, who hailed from Munich, Germany came in 1854 to Himalayas and drew a panoramic view which is the first known picture of Nanga Parbat. In 1857 one of them was murdered in Kashgar and this was the beginning of curse of Nanga Parbat. Nange Parbat was first successfully climbed by Herman Buhl in 1953.