Imagine a mountain so immense it floats in the sky. In the early 1800s, Westerners thought the Andes were the world’s highest mountains. In 1809, a British surveyor triangulated Dhaulagiri’s height as 26,862 feet, a number “that was mocked” (Harvard & Thompson, Mountain of Storms, p. 1). He wasn’t far off; its actual height is 26,795 feet, only 67 feet less. Seeing is believing it’s a monster! Until 1847, it was thought to be the world’s highest peak. It was first climbed in 1960.
