 It was first climbed by a French party in 1955. The peak was
first mapped and photographed from the Tibet side in 1921 by
British Everest reconnaissance. Hillary and Shipton photographed
Makalu during a side trip on the 1951 Everest reconnaissance.
Hillary and others approached the peak a year later after the
failure of their Cho Oyu expedition.
The first attempt on Makalu was in 1954 by a US team, mostly
from California , who trekked all the way from the Indian border
near Biratnagar. At the same time a British team approached the
mountain, but this expedition was abandoned when Hillary became
seriously ill and had to be evacuated. In the autumn of 1954 a
French team attempted the peak. In the following spring,
successfully ascents were made by three teams of French climbers
on successive days.
In May 1961, the expedition trekked across the Mingbo La and
other high passes to the foot off Makalu , where they planned to
climb the French route, Sickness stopped the expedition, which
became a heroic struggle for survival. The Japanese climbed
Makalu in 1970, another French team climbed it in 1971 and a
Yugoslav expedition reached the summit in 1975. In 1976 Spanish
and Czechoslovakian teams joined up near the summit. |
