The Tibetans consider Cho Oyu to be sacred; in Europe, its existence was only recognized in 1921. For a long time, it was the least climbed of the eight-thousanders, but today it is one of the most ascended, alongside Mount Everest. Reinhold Messner recounts the significance of Nangpa La, a 6,000-meter-high pass that has been traversed by the people of the Himalayas since ancient times: he tells of the first ascent by the Austrian Herbert Tichy in 1954, the dramatic events of the women's expedition in 1959, Reinhard Karl's death, his own failure on Cho Oyu, and the successful ascent in 1983, as well as modern routes like the one by Denis Urubko.