The park that climbs eight kilometres
Makalu first drew climbers in 1954, when an American team from California and a New Zealand party that included Edmund Hillary explored its approaches. The following year a French expedition led by Jean Franco succeeded: on 15 May 1955 Lionel Terray and Jean Couzy reached the summit, and over the next days the rest of the team, including Gyalzen Norbu Sherpa, followed. It was one of the first expeditions to put almost its whole climbing team on top of an eight-thousander.
In 1992 Nepal declared Makalu Barun National Park as an eastern extension of Sagarmatha National Park, covering about 1,500 km² with a buffer zone to the south and south-east. The Barun valley at its core was set aside as a strictly protected area, with its forests and alpine meadows left largely untouched. The buffer zone around the park includes the villages of the approach, such as Seduwa and Tashigaon, where people continue to farm, graze animals and collect forest products under local rules.
The park runs from the Arun valley at a few hundred metres to Makalu's summit, a rise of more than 8,000 m. Few protected areas on earth hold tropical forest and snow peaks of this height together. For trekkers, that means walking through almost every climate zone of the Himalaya in two weeks, from warm valleys where bananas grow to glaciers at nearly 5,000 m. The park shares its northern border with the Qomolangma reserve in Tibet.
