The western Diamirface of Nanga Parbat (Page 1 of 4)

Picture-gallery of the most climbed western, the Diamirface of Nanga Parbat (click to enlarge the pictures)

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Nanga Parbat is the western corner pillar of the Himalayas, a mountain still growing some millimeter each year, due to tectonic activities in the region. With the mighty Indus-river in the North and East of the mountain, Nanga Parbat is separated as a sheer mass growing out from the plains.

Because the westside of the mountain offers the shortest and easiest climbing-routes, nowadays nearly all expeditions and climbers are active on this side, the "Diamir-Side". The entrance-area of the climbing-routes is located on an elevation of 4,200m, an altitude, were most of the famous european mountains ends. Like the worldfamous swiss "Matterhorn (4,478m)", which fits easily many ..ies times in the Nanga Parbat massif. The pictures below show both mountains and the climbing-routes in the same scale.

Nanga Parbat and Matterhorn (Swiss) in the same scale

The most climbed and used route is the "Kinshofer-Route", opened in 1962 by a german team. As many expeditions and mountaineering-deeds showed, it is a "safe, calculable" route which is becomming a playground to mountaineers. Nearly the whole route is open for visual inspection and radio-communication, so the climbers have a solid backup-audience by their parties to count on. The difficult part of this route is a short rock-climbing at an elevation just above 6,000m, but this part is usually secured by rope-ladders. And of course, with fixed-rope to be used for ascenders. In the picture below, this part is marked as a red circle.

Central Diamir-face of Nanga Parbat, critical part of the "Kinshofer-Route" (Normal-route) is marked