Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

Mt Kailash (24,980ft, 6714m) rises above the Himalayan steppe, a snowcapped
sentinel watching over the dusty, crumpled bottomlands, with
their dry valleys and meandering rivers, their Buddhist monasteries
balanced on crumbling cliffs, their humans in rubber sandals and woollen robes,
herds of baying goats and gemstone lakes cast in blinding hues. Rather small by
Himalayan standards, Mt Kailash is nonetheless a symbolic titan, the axis of the
world, with faces set in each cardinal direction and glacial waters feeding the
major rivers of Asia.
In Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Bön traditions, completing the 32-mile (52km) kora
around Mt Kailash earns spiritual merit. Some walk through the night or make
prostrations the whole way while others ride horses, hire porters or consume bottled
oxygen. Most do it clockwise, though practitioners of Bön, an animist tradition that
pre-dates Buddhism, make their pilgrimage in reverse. Its crux is the Drölma-la, an