Pakistan (8,125 m) – Highest Mountain Face On Earth
Nanga Parbat is one of the great peaks of the Himalayas, and enjoys several distinctions. It appears on the top twenty lists for both highest and most prominent peaks in the world, with only one other mountain, Everest, on both lists. It is also famous for the massive vertical faces on every side, including the Rupal Face, at 4,600 m the highest on the planet. Its name means Naked Mountain.
This great Himalayan peak was first explored by westerners in the late 19th century. Numerous early expeditions attempted to scale the mountain in the 1930s, but all of these failed, and several resulted in deaths. One of these attempts was by Heinrich Harrer, whose expedition was made famous in the story Seven Years in Tibet. The mountain was not successfully climbed until 1953, when Austrian climber Hermann Buhl reached the peak, the first person to climb an 8,000 meter mountain solo.
Nanga Parbat is one of the great destinations for serious mountain climbers. However, it has developed a bad reputation for would-be visitors. First, it is one of the world’s deadliest mountains, and it is known by its nickname the “killer” mountain. In addition, the mountain was the site of a massacre of tourists by religious extremists in 2013. Nanga Parbat is located in the most isolated and remote places in Pakistan, with the closest town, Bandipora, sixty miles away, and the large city of Lahore more than 200 miles to the south.
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