Nothing beckons a man like the forbidden. Any taboo has always, in all centuries, acted on daring minds in the same way - as an elementary challenge. How do you think the very existence of "unconquered peaks" affects professional mountaineers? The answer: it awakens aspirations. For tourists and amateurs the reaction is different: there is a curiosity, why hasn't a foot of man set foot on them yet? In this article we will tell you about this mountain in detail and interestingly, and you can see it in person in our treks in Nepal in the Annapurna region.
Mount Machapuchare (or Machapuchre - there are certain "difficulties" of Nepalese spelling) spreads freely in the heart of central Nepal, near Pokhara (the distance is about 25 km to the North). The mountain belongs to the southern part of the Annapurna mountain range and hardly reaches the 7000 m class, because its 6 000 998 m height is difficult to be called a real six thousand meter peak, but as they say a fact is a fact.
Trek Mardi Himal is ideal for beginners who are traveling to Nepal for the first time or have no trekking experience at all. The track's specialty is the unique views of the sacred peak of Machapuchare, the abode of Lord Shiva. Shiva chose a beautiful peak for his home, and we will see it from all sides. Acclimatization is smooth, transitions are short. Plenty of time for socializing, games, yoga, photos, books.
To make an unauthorized attempt to climb the mountain is not only to disregard the religious feelings of the Nepalese, but also to violate a clear administrative rule of law, which entails strict liability. (For the inquisitive, we should note that there is no death penalty - it was abolished in 1990, but Section XIX of the Nepalese penal code is devoted to religious crimes for which you are unlikely to just get a stern reprimand.)
The fact that the mountain is closed to climbing does not mean that no one has ever tried to climb this amazing peak. The official sources resoundingly assert that in all history there was only one unfinished attempt by a British expedition to climb the mountain. What is remarkable, it was done in the same year when they adopted an official ban on climbing, in the same 1957. But among climbers rumor has it that a widely known in small circles adventurer from New Zealand named Bill Denes in the 1980s conquered the mountain at his own risk. Rumor has it that he was able to climb several other forbidden by law mountain peaks. Being a man of secrecy, he took the secret of the reality of his ascent of Machapuchar to the next world when he was hit by an avalanche in 1983 during his latest adventure. It is fair to say that there are some legal little-known inhabitants of the mountain slopes of Machapuchare, who can safely walk on the slopes of the mountain. These are Tibetan long-eared hedgehogs that live here and nowhere else, and it's already a good luck to see them.
It is a crime to talk about Machapuchar without telling about the British expedition of 1957. So it is worth two words to tell about their achievement, which is described in detail and artistically in the book "Climbing the Fish's Tail" (1958) by Wilfrid Noyce, one of the real participants of that ascent.
The most difficult and dangerous route chosen by the expedition was the best and the most acceptable of all the alternatives. The attempt had started on 18.04.1957 from Pokhara and on 02.06.1957 the climbers gave up because they lost the coordinates of the summit, it snowed heavily. The ascent to the steep slope after the crack in the snow and ice (bergschrund) was almost insurmountable. The caprice of nature drove the climbers from the summit, for their further ascent was more than a threat to their lives.
The real sensation in the mountaineering community was the publication in many newspapers in 1957 of texts saying that Machapuchare had been conquered. However, this is not true, because the British climbers could not overcome the last 50 meters to the peak. It was not that they could not overcome, not that they stopped proactively, so as not to hurt the religious feelings of the inhabitants. You can imagine how offended the climbers were when they were one step away from accomplishing the feat, but it would have counted for them if they had reached the summit without reaching the notional height (for example, the "officially accomplished" ascent of Kanchenjunga in 1955 was stopped at 1.5 meters from the top as a sign of respect and esteem for the local religion).
That's how it ended, but believers find a sacred meaning in it. They say that the unwanted guests in the house of Shiva should be so happy that they came back alive! Doesn't anyone understand that this is a lesson to all who wish to follow! Who does not know the truth that lessons should be properly understood and adequately responded to? As a result, from now on - not a single living soul will climb the mountain!
We do not offer you to climb to the top of Machapuchare, but you can see it from all sides and take pictures from different angles in our programs:
The author of the article: Andrey Litvinchuk