Kathmandu: Nepal is set to celebrate the
50th anniversary of the first ascent to the 8167 meter-high
Dhaulagiri Peak.
Special functions will be organised on May 13 and 14
to observe the golden jubilee celebrations of historic
expedition to the top of Dhaulagiri.
Austrian climber Kurt Diemberger, who was among the
first persons to climb Mount Dhaulagiri, and Ang Rita Sherpa,
who has climbed the mountain for seven times, are among the
ten mountaineers who will attend the celebrations.
A special programme will be organised in Pokhara,
the tourist hub in western Nepal, on May 13 to felicitate the
mountaineers, according to Nepal Tourism Board.
"I was very happy when I climbed the mountain in May
13, 1960," said Diemberger, the only remaining person alive to
climb the mountain for the first time.
On May 14, a programme will be organised in Beni of
Myagdi district.
Food festival, cultural programme and felicitation
programme will be held as part of the celebrations.
At 8,167 metres, Mount Dhaulagiri was considered until
the mid-1800s the world`s highest mountain. Even today it has
the greatest vertical rise from the local terrain, shooting
skyward for 3 kilometres. And in 1960, it remained next to
last among the world?s 8,000-metre peaks to be conquered.
On May 13, 1960, a six-member expedition team reached
the apex of the peak.
"It is a beautiful mountain," said Diemberger who
arrived in Kathmandu to celebrate the Golden Jubilee.
"The mountain has been seen for centuries from the
Indian plains, a floating white castle," he added.
A camera man by profession, Diemberger, has been
involved in filming various mountaineering expeditions.
He has also produced two films on the mountains of
Nepal, one about a people of Tashigang village near Mount
Makalu in 1986 and the other about the people and the
villages between the world of human and the world of mountain
god in 1971.
"The successful summiting of Mount Dhaulagiri in 1960
holds a great importance for the development of mountain
tourism of Nepal globally," said Ang Tshering Sherpa,
president of Nepal Mountaineering Association.
PTI
