Trekking in Mainri སྨན་རི།

Mainri Snow Mountains (Tibetan: སྨན་རི།) is a mountain range in what is now Yunnan province. The mountains are bounded by the Salween River on the west and the Mekong on the east. The crest of the range rises to over 6,000 metres making for impressive prominence over the river valleys to the east and west, which are between 1,500 metres and 1,900 metres in elevation. The highest peak is Kawagarbo or Khawa Karpo (Tibetan: ཁ་བ་དཀར་པོ།) which rises to 6,740 m. Other significant peaks include Mianzimu, Cogar Laka and Jiariren-an. Because of restrictions and dangerous conditions, none of the major peaks in the range have ever been summited.

Kawagarbo is one of the most sacred mountains for Tibetan Buddhism as the spiritual home of a warrior god of the same name.It is visited by 20,000 pilgrims each year from throughout the Tibetan world; many pilgrims circumambulate the peak, an arduous 240 km trek.

The ancestral religion of the Kawagarpo area, as in much of Tibet, was Bön, a shamanistic tradition based on the concept of a world pervaded by good and evil spirits. Bön encompassed numerous deities and spirits which are still recognized today, and are often connected with specific geographical localities and natural features; the major mountain peaks in the Hengduan Mountains are thus all identified with specific deities. Kawagarbo is one of these. Since its introduction, Tibetan Buddhism has been the dominant religion of the Kawagarbo area, with followers of Gelugpa doctrine being the most common.

Tibetans believe the warrior god will leave them if human sets foot on the peak of Kawakarpo, making the ground unholy. Disasters will follow as they lose god's protection. Tibetans have also established a centuries-old sacred geography around the peak, maintained by religious leaders from local monasteries in negotiation with local villages. This sacred natural site preserves the natural resources and ecological health of the range.

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