Mount Gongga
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Mount Gongga (Template:Zh), also known as Minya Konka (Khams Tibetan: Template:Bo-textonly, Khams Tibetan pinyin: Mi'nyâg Gong'ga Riwo) and colloquially as "The King of Sichuan Mountains", is the highest mountain in Sichuan province, China. It has an elevation of Template:Convert above sea level, as surveyed by the Ministry of Natural Resources in November 2023.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This makes it the third highest peak in the world outside of the Himalaya/Karakoram range, after Tirich Mir and Kongur Tagh, and the easternmost and most isolated Template:Convert peak in the world. It is situated in the Daxue Shan mountain range, between Dadu River and Yalong River, and is part of the Hengduan mountainous region. From it comes the Hailuogou glacier.
The peak has large vertical relief over the deep nearby gorges.
Mountaineering history
The first western explorers in this region heard reports of an extremely high mountain and sought it out. An early remote measurement of the mountain, then called Bokunka, was first performed by the Inner Asian expedition of the Hungarian count Béla Széchenyi between 1877 and 1880.<ref name="Heim">Arnold Heim: The Glaciation and Solifluction of Minya Gongkar. The Geographical Journal. Vol. 87, No. 5 (May, 1936), pp. 444–450. Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)</ref> That survey put the altitude of the peak at Template:Convert.
Forty-five years later, the mountain, this time called Gang ka, was sketched by China Inland Mission missionary James Huston Edgar from a distance.
In 1929 the explorer Joseph Rock, in an attempt to measure the mountain's altitude, miscalculated its height as Template:Convert and cabled the National Geographic Society to announce Minya Konka as the highest mountain in the world.<ref name="Heim" /> This measurement was immediately viewed with suspicion, and the Society's decision to check Rock's calculations before publication was well-founded. Following discussions with the Society, Rock reduced his claim to Template:Convert in his formal publication.
In 1930 Swiss geographer Eduard Imhof led an expedition that measured the altitude of the mountain to be Template:Convert.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A richly illustrated large-format book about the expedition was eventually published by Imhof, Die Großen Kalten Berge von Szetchuan (Orell Fussli Verlag, Zurich, 1974). The book includes many color paintings by Imhof, including images of the Tibetan monastery at the foot of the sacred mountain. The monastery was almost completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, around 1972–74.
A properly equipped American team composed of Terris Moore, Richard Burdsall, Arthur B. Emmons, and Jack T. Young returned to the mountain in 1932 and performed an accurate survey of the peak and its environs. Their summit altitude measurement agreed with Imhof's figure of Template:Convert. Moore and Burdsall succeeded in climbing to the summit by starting on the west side of the mountain and climbing the Northwest Ridge. This was a remarkable achievement at the time, considering the height of the mountain, its remoteness, and the small size of the group. In addition, this peak was the highest summit reached by Americans until 1958 (though Americans had by that time climbed to higher non-summit points). The book written by the expedition members, Men Against The Clouds,<ref>R. Burdsall, T. Moore, A. Emmons, and J. Young, Men Against The Clouds (revised edition), The Mountaineers, 1980.</ref> remains a mountaineering classic.
In May 1957 a Chinese mountaineering team claimed to have climbed Minya Konka via the Northwest Ridge route established by Moore and Burdsall. Six people reached the summit with limited climbing experience and primitive equipment, although four climbers died in the effort.<ref name="ganzi">Template:Cite news</ref>
For political reasons, this region of China was made inaccessible to foreign climbers after the 1930s. In 1980 the region was again opened to foreign expeditions. American Lance Owens was the first foreigner to receive permission from the People's Republic of China to lead a mountaineering expedition in China and Tibet, allowing him to climb Gongga Shan (Minya Konka) in 1980. This expedition opened the modern era of American climbing in China. The expedition, organized by Owens and sponsored by the American Alpine Club, attempted the still unclimbed and extremely technical west face of Minya Konka. Members of the expedition included Louis Reichardt, Andrew Harvard, Gary Bocarde, Jed Williamson, and Henry Barber.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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Deaths on the mountain
A large number of mountaineering deaths have occurred on Gongga Shan, which has earned a reputation as a difficult and dangerous mountain. While the first ascent route up the Northwest Ridge appears technically straightforward, it is plagued by avalanches due to the mountain's highly unpredictable weather. During the 1957 Chinese ascent of the peak, four of nine climbers died. In 1980 an American climber died in an avalanche on the Northwest Ridge route.<ref>Rick Ridgeway, Below Another Sky: A Mountain Adventure in Search of a Lost Father, 2000</ref> In an unsuccessful 1981 attempt on the peak, eight Japanese climbers died in a fall.<ref name="ninemsn.com.au">Searchers find body missing for 26 years, AAP, Jun 12 2007 Template:Webarchive</ref><ref name="Minya Konka Gongga Shan">SummitPost Minya Konka (Gongga Shan)</ref> As of 1999, more climbers had died trying to climb the mountain than had reached the summit.<ref name="macfarlane">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
As of 2003, the mountain had been successfully climbed only eight times.<ref name="Minya Konka Gongga Shan"/> In total, 22 climbers had reached the summit and 16 climbers had died in the effort. (These statistics may not take into account the four Chinese climbers killed in the 1957 expedition.)
The Himalayan Index lists five ascents of Gongga Shan between 1982 and 2002, and about seven unsuccessful attempts.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> There have been several attempts in years since then, which are unlisted in this index.
In October 2017, Chinese media reported that Pavel Kořínek, a Czech national, had reached the top of Gongga Shan, marking the first time since 2002 that the mountain had been successfully climbed.<ref name="ganzi"/> The article summarized the climbing history of Gongga Shan (Minya Konka) as follows:
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"Under the long-term action of the glacier, the main peak developed into a cone-shaped, high-angle peak, with surrounding cliffs at 60° to 70°. Coupled with the bad weather in the region, it is difficult to conquer. The summit is much more difficult than Everest. According to incomplete statistics, as of September 2017, a total of 32 people had successfully reached the summit and 21 people were killed during attempts to climb the peak. According to the Sichuan Mountaineering Association, the death rate of Gongga Shan is much higher than Everest and all the 13 peaks over 8000 meters, making it the peak with the highest mountain death rate in the world...."<ref name="ganzi"/>{{#if:|
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Side peaks
While the main summit can only be taken on by professional mountaineers, multiple side peaks are destination of commercial climbing trips, such as:
- Zhongshan Peak (中山峰), 6,886 m
- Mount Jinyin (金银山), 6,410 m
- Nama Peak (那玛峰), 5,588 m
References
Further reading
- Michael Brandtner: Minya Konka Schneeberge im Osten Tibets. Die Entdeckung eines Alpin-Paradieses. Detjen-Verlag, Hamburg 2006, Template:ISBN
- Arnold Heim: Minya Gongkar. Verlag Hans Huber, Bern–Berlin 1933
- Eduard Imhof: Die großen kalten Berge von Szetschuan. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zürich 1974
- Richard Burdsall & Arthur Emmons: Men Against the Clouds: The Conquest of Minya Konka. The Bodley Head, London 1935
External links
- Corrected versions of SRTM digital elevation data
- Trekking Tour to Mt.Minya Konka
- Gongga Shan Travel and Trekking Guide on Chinabackpacker
Template:Sichuan topics Template:Sacred Mountains of China Template:Authority control