Makalu
Encyclopedia
Makalu is the fifth highest mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

 in the world at 8481 metres (27,824.8 ft) and is located 19 km (11.8 mi) southeast of Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...

, on the border between Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

 and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. One of the eight-thousander
Eight-thousander
The eight-thousanders are the fourteen independent mountains on Earth that are more than high above sea level. They are all located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia....

s, Makalu is an isolated peak whose shape is a four-sided pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...

.

Makalu has two notable subsidiary peaks. Kangchungtse, or Makalu II (7,678 m) lies about 3 km (2 mi) north-northwest of the main summit. Rising about 5 km (3.1 mi) north-northeast of the main summit across a broad plateau, and connected to Kangchungtse by a narrow, 7,200 m saddle, is Chomo Lonzo
Chomo Lonzo
Chomo Lonzo is a mountain in Tibet, 5 km northeast of Makalu in the Mahalungur or Khumbu Himalayas. Alternate spellings of the same name include Chomolonzo, Chomolönzo, Chomo Lönzo, Jomolönzo, and Lhamalangcho....

 (7,804 m).

Climbing history

The first attempt on Makalu was made by an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 team led by William Siri
William Siri
William E. Siri was an American biophysicist, mountaineer and environmentalist. He was born in Philadelphia, PA and attended school in Audubon, NJ.-Education and scientific career:...

 in the spring of 1954. The expedition was composed of Sierra Club
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...

 members including Allen Steck
Allen Steck
Allen Steck is an American mountaineer and rock climber, and a native of Oakland, California.-Mountaineering:Steck started climbing with his brother George. In 1940 when Allen was 16, the two completed the first ascent of the northwest ridge of Mount Maclure . He served in the U.S. Navy during...

, and was called the California Himalayan Expedition to Makalu. This was the first American mountaineering expedition to the Himalaya.
They attempted the southeast ridge but were turned back at 7,100 m (23,300 ft) by a constant barrage of storms. A New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 team including Sir Edmund Hillary
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KG, ONZ, KBE , was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest – see Timeline of climbing Mount Everest...

 was also active in the spring, but did not get very high due to injury and illness. In the fall of 1954, a French reconnaissance expedition made the first ascents of the subsidiary summits Kangchungtse (October 22: Jean Franco, Lionel Terray
Lionel Terray
Lionel Terray was a French climber who made many first ascents, including Makalu in the Himalaya and Cerro Fitzroy in the Patagonian Andes ....

, Sardar
Sardar
Sardar is a title of Indo-Aryan origin that was originally used to denote feudal princes, noblemen, and other aristocrats. It was later applied to indicate a Head of State, a Commander-in-chief, and an Army military rank...

 Gyaltsen Norbu and Pa Norbu) and Chomo Lonzo (October 30(?): Jean Couzy
Jean Couzy
Jean Couzy was a French mountaineer. He studied aeronautical engineering at the École Polytechnique. At age 27, he was a member of Maurice Herzog's 1950 expedition to Annapurna. Prior to this, his usual climbing partner was Marcel Schatz, another member of the expedition...

 and Terray).

Makalu was first climbed on May 15, 1955 by Lionel Terray
Lionel Terray
Lionel Terray was a French climber who made many first ascents, including Makalu in the Himalaya and Cerro Fitzroy in the Patagonian Andes ....

 and Jean Couzy
Jean Couzy
Jean Couzy was a French mountaineer. He studied aeronautical engineering at the École Polytechnique. At age 27, he was a member of Maurice Herzog's 1950 expedition to Annapurna. Prior to this, his usual climbing partner was Marcel Schatz, another member of the expedition...

 of a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 expedition led by Jean Franco. Franco, G. Magnone and Sardar Gyaltsen Norbu summitted the next day, followed by Bouvier, S. Coupe, Leroux and A. Vialatte on the 17th. This was an amazing achievement at the time to have the vast majority of expedition members summit, especially on such a difficult peak. Prior to this time, summits were reached by 1-2 people at most with the rest of teams providing logistical support before turning around and heading home. The French team climbed Makalu by the north face and northeast ridge, via the saddle between Makalu and Kangchungtse (the Makalu-La), establishing the standard route.

Notable ascents

  • 1955 North Face to Northeast Ridge FA by Lionel Terray
    Lionel Terray
    Lionel Terray was a French climber who made many first ascents, including Makalu in the Himalaya and Cerro Fitzroy in the Patagonian Andes ....

     and Jean Couzy
    Jean Couzy
    Jean Couzy was a French mountaineer. He studied aeronautical engineering at the École Polytechnique. At age 27, he was a member of Maurice Herzog's 1950 expedition to Annapurna. Prior to this, his usual climbing partner was Marcel Schatz, another member of the expedition...

     of France.
  • 1970: Southeast Ridge FA of ridge attempted by the Americans was made by Y. Ozaki and A. Tanaka from Japan
    Japan
    Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

     on May 23.
  • 1971: The very technical West Pillar route was climbed in May by Frenchmen B. Mellet and Y. Seigneur.
  • 1975: South Face - an expedition led by Aleš Kunaver reached the top of Makalu up its steep southern side, becoming the first Slovenes to summit an eight-thousander. The first amongst them was Stane Belak. This was the third ascent of an eight-thousand meter peak by a great mountain face.
  • 1980: The second ascent of the West Pillar was completed in May by John Roskelley
    John Roskelley
    John Roskelley is a noted mountain climber and author from Spokane, Washington, and is known for his first ascents and notable ascents of 7000 and 8000 meter peaks in Nepal, India, and Pakistan.-Notable ascents:...

     (summit), Chris Kopczynski, James States and Kim Momb, without Sherpa support and without bottled oxygen.
  • 1981: On 15 October renowned Polish
    Poles
    thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

     climber Jerzy Kukuczka
    Jerzy Kukuczka
    Jerzy Kukuczka , born in Katowice, Poland, was a Polish alpine and high-altitude climber. On 18 September 1987, he became the second man, after Reinhold Messner, to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders in the world....

     ascended Makalu via a new route up the north-western side and north crest. Kukuczka climbed solo, in Alpine style
    Alpine style
    Alpine style refers to mountaineering in a self-sufficient manner, thereby carrying all of one's food, shelter, equipment etc. as one climbs, as opposed to expedition style mountaineering which involves setting up a fixed line of stocked camps on the mountain which can be accessed at one's leisure...

    , without supplemental oxygen
    Oxygen
    Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

    .
  • 1988: Frenchman Marc Batard climbed in one day (after camps were set up) to the summit via the West Buttress on April 27.
  • 1989: Direct South Face, solo new start by Frenchman Pierre Beghin to 1975 Yugoslav route.
  • 1997: After seven failed attempts between 1977 and 1996, the West face was finally conquered. A Russian expedition led by Sergey Efimov brought Alexei Bolotov, Yuri Ermachek, Dmitri Pavlenko, Igor Bugachevski and Nikolai Jiline to the summit. This ascent won the 1997 Piolet d'Or
    Piolet d'Or
    The Piolet d'Or is an annual mountaineering award given by the French magazine Montagnes and The Groupe de Haute Montagne since 1991...

    ,
  • 2006: On or about January 27 the French
    French people
    The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

     mountaineer Jean-Christophe Lafaille
    Jean-Christophe Lafaille
    Jean-Christophe Lafaille was a French mountaineer noted for a number of difficult ascents in the Alps and Himalaya, and for what has been described as "perhaps the finest self-rescue ever performed in the Himalaya", when he was forced to descend the mile-high south face of Annapurna alone with a...

     disappeared on Makalu while trying to make the first winter ascent.
  • 2009: Makalu was first climbed in winter on February 9, 2009 by Italian Simone Moro
    Simone Moro
    Simone Moro is an Italian alpinist. He has climbed several 8000m peaks without using supplementary oxygen. - Early life :...

     and Kazakh Denis Urubko. It was the final Nepali eight-thousander to be climbed in winter conditions. Moro had previously made the first winter ascent of Shishapangma
    Shishapangma
    Xixabangma, frequently spelled Shishapangma or Shisha Pangma , also called Gosainthān , is the fourteenth-highest mountain in the world and, at 8,013 m , the lowest of the eight-thousanders...

     in winter 2005 with Pole
    Poland
    Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

     Piotr Morawski
    Piotr Morawski
    Piotr Morawski was a Polish mountaineer. He was best known for making the first successful winter ascent together with Simone Moro of Shisha Pangma on January 14, 2005. Morawski died aged 32 during an international Dhaulagiri/Manaslu expedition in Nepal...

    .


Makalu is one of the harder eight-thousanders, and is considered one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb. The mountain is notorious for its steep pitches and knife-edged ridges that are completely open to the elements. The final ascent of the summit pyramid involves technical rock/ice climbing
Rock climbing
Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

.

Makalu-Barun Valley

Makalu-Barun Valley
Barun Valley
Barun Valley is a Himalayan valley situated at the base of Mt. Makalu in the Sankhuwasabha district Nepal. This valley lies entirely inside the Makalu Barun National Park....

 is a himalayan glacier valley situated at the base of Mt. Makalu in the Sankhuwasabha district Nepal. This valley lies entirely inside the Makalu Barun National Park.

Barun Valley provides stunning contrasts, where high waterfalls cascade into deep gorges, craggy rocks rise from lush green forests, and colorful flowers bloom beneath white snow peaks. This unique landscape shelters some of the last pristine mountain ecosystems on earth. Rare species of animals and plants flourish in diverse climates and habitats, relatively undisturbed by human kind.

The first attempt of the Ski in the Himalayas expedition traveled along this valley to reach to the Makalu Base Camp.

Further Reading

  • Franco, Jean, Makalu : 8470 metres (27,790 feet) : the highest peak yet conquered by an entire team, J. Cape, 1957.
  • Terray, Lionel, Conquistadors of the Useless, p.323-335, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1963. ISBN 0-89886-778-9

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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