Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash is a 6,638 m (21,778 ft) peak situated in today’s Tibet. It raises up into the sky, in the center area of the source of Asia’s 3 major rivers: Indus river, Brahmanputra river and the Ganges river.
“All mountains are sacred”… quote Mrs Oh Eun Sun, disputed first woman on the 14 8000, the Kailash is by far the most sacred mountain in Asia, to Hindus it’s considered to be the eternal home to the Lord Shiva, and Tantric Buddhist believe that Mount Kailash is the home to the Buddah Demchok.
Every year, thousands make a pilgrimage to Kailash, following a tradition going back thousands of years. Pilgrims of several religions believe that circumambulating Mount Kailash on foot is a holy ritual that will bring good fortune. The peregrination is made in a clockwise direction by Hindus and Buddhists. Followers of the Jain and Bönpo religions circumambulate the mountain in a counterclockwise direction. The path around Mount Kailash is 52 km (32 mi) long.
Climbing the Kailash is not advisable, and it has never been done, as it’s told that it will put a curse upon the climbers, who will start to grow old very fast. Prospected in 1926 by Hugh Ruttledge and later by Herbert Tichy who was in the area in 1936, attempting to climb Gurla Mandhata. When he asked one of the Garpons of Ngari whether Kailash was climbable, the Garpon replied, “Only a man entirely free of sin could climb Kailas. And he wouldn’t have to actually scale the sheer walls of ice to do it – he’d just turn himself into a bird and fly to the summit.”
Reinhold Messner was given the opportunity by the Chinese government to climb the mountain in the 1980s but he declined. In 2001 the Chinese gave permission for a Spanish team led by Jesus Martinez Novas to climb the peak, but in the face of international disapproval the Chinese decided to ban all attempts to climb the mountain. Messner, referring to the Spanish plans, said, “If we conquer this mountain, then we conquer something in people’s souls … I would suggest they go and climb something a little harder. Kailas is not so high and not so hard“
You are right Reinhold….better stay away from this one!
