Kangchenjunga

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Kangchenjunga
Kangchenjunga from Gangtok

Kangchenjunga from Gangtok

height 8586  m
location Taplejung ( Nepal ),
North Sikkim ( India )
Mountains Kangchenjunga Himal ( Himalaya )
Dominance 123.96 km →  Mount Everest
Notch height 3922 m
Coordinates 27 ° 42 '11 "  N , 88 ° 8' 51"  E Coordinates: 27 ° 42 '11 "  N , 88 ° 8' 51"  E
Kangchenjunga (Sikkim)
Kangchenjunga
First ascent May 25, 1955 by George Band and Joe Brown
Normal way Alpine tour (glaciated)
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The Kangchenjunga ( Tibetan གངས་ ཆེན་ མཛོད་ ལྔ Wylie gangs chen mdzod lnga ་, Nepali कञ्चनजङ्घा Kañcanjaṅghā , Hindi कंचनजंघा Kañcanjaṅghā , pronunciation in the last two cases Kantschandschanga, hence the English spelling Kangchenjunga ; in German mountaineering jargon is often called Kantsch with 8586)  m the third highest mountain on earth and at the same time the most easterly eight-thousander .

The border between Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim runs over its summit . Since the annexation of the former Kingdom of Sikkim to the Indian Union in 1975, it has been the highest mountain in India, ahead of the Nanda Devi .

Until 1852 it was believed that the Kangchenjunga was the highest mountain on earth. Only the calculations of the trigonometric survey of India by the British in 1849 proved that Mount Everest and K2 are even higher and that Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain on earth.

The Kangchenjunga was first climbed on May 25, 1955 by George Band and Joe Brown . The British honored the belief of the people of Sikkim who venerated the summit as a sacred mountain by stopping a few steps from the actual summit. Many successful climbs have since followed this tradition. The last meters of altitude no longer offer mountaineering difficulties.

Surname

The name Kangchenjunga comes from Tibetan and consists of the four words (in the transcription after Wylie ) gangs "snow", chen "large", mdzod "treasury" and lnga "five", which means "the five treasure chambers of the great snow" can be translated. This could mean either the five highest peaks or, according to GO Dyhrenfurth , the five main glaciers of the mountain.

The peaks

V. l. Right: west summit, main summit, middle summit, south summit

The Kangchenjunga is the only eight-thousander where, in addition to the main peak, three other peaks reach a height of more than 8,000  m . The (presumably) eponymous five peaks of the Kangchenjunga are:

summit height Notch height
Kangchenjunga 8586  m 3922 m
Kangchenjunga West Summit (Yalung Kang) 8505  m 135 m
Kangchenjunga South Summit 8476  m 116 m
Kangchenjunga Central Summit 8473  m 63 m
Kangbachen Peak 7902  m 103 m

More mountains of the massif

From the main summit of the Kangchenjunga, four long mountain ridges descend in an x-shape in all directions: the north and west ridge begin at the main summit. An almost horizontal ridge runs to the southeast over the central to the south summit, where the south and east ridge branch off.

  • The west ridge runs on the Nepalese side over the west summit and Kangbachen to the 7710  m high Jannu .
  • The east ridge finally ends at Siniolchu ( 6888  m ) in Sikkim.
  • The south ridge runs over Kabru North ( 7338  m ), Kabru South ( 7316  m ) and the up to 6678  m high Rathong peaks. It forms the border between Nepal and India.
  • The peaks of the north ridge are also on the border. The north ridge extends over the secondary peak Kangchenjunga Nord ( 7741  m ), the Twins and the Tent Peak to Jongsong La , a 6120  m high pass on the border with Tibet.

  • View from the south from Tiger Hill (Darjeeling) : In the sun the south summit and south and east ridge, in the shadow to the left above the south summit the three other 8000er peaks, on the far left, also in the sunlight, the Jannu

Ascent history

V. l. Right: north face of Kangchenjunga with main summit, western summit and Kangbach brook

In 1905, Aleister Crowley led the first expedition attempting to climb Kangchenjunga. They reached an altitude of about 6500  m . Four members of the group were killed in an avalanche . In 1929 a German expedition led by Paul Bauer reached an altitude of 7,400  m on the northeast ridge before being forced to turn back by a five-day storm. A year later, the second German expedition took place, this time under the leadership of Günter Dyhrenfurth and Ulrich Wieland . She chose a route over the northern flank and failed due to bad weather and a snow storm. In 1931 another expedition led by Bauer, which tried the route from 1929 again, had to be canceled at an altitude of approx. 7700  m due to the extreme danger of avalanches. In the following years the interest of the German expedition shifted from Kangchenjunga to Nanga Parbat . A total of five German Nanga Parbat expeditions were carried out from 1932 to 1939 .

On May 25, 1955, George Band and Joe Brown, members of a British expedition led by Charles Evans , managed the first ascent of the main summit on a route through the southwest flank. 10 days after the first ascent of Makalu , this was the seventh first ascent of an eight-thousander. Just one day later, Norman D. Hardie and Antony HR Streather were two other expedition members on the summit.

Aerial view of the Kangchenjunga massif from the south

In 1979 Doug Scott , Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker managed the first ascent of the main summit without bottled oxygen. They opened a new route over the north ridge. Four years later, the Frenchman Pierre Béghin was the first to reach the summit solo and without bottled oxygen. On January 11, 1986 Jerzy Kukuczka and Krzysztof Wielicki made the first winter ascent. Three years later a Russian expedition (including Anatoli Bukrejew ) crossed all four peaks above 8000  m for the first time , with two teams going in opposite directions.

In the 1990s, the attempts by women to climb were particularly significant. Until then, no woman had made it to the top. In 1991, mountaineers Marija Frantor and Joze Rozman died on the mountain, their bodies were later found below the summit wall. The following year, Wanda Rutkiewicz , the most successful female climber at the time , died after refusing to descend despite the approaching storm. In 1998, Ginette Harrison became the first woman to reach the summit. A year later she died in an avalanche on Dhaulagiri . The second woman on the summit was the Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner . She reached it together with other mountaineers, including Ralf Dujmovits , Norbert Joos and Veikka Gustafsson , on May 14, 2006.

Khangchendzonga National Park

India's Khangchendzonga National Park , which was established in 1977 and covers an area of ​​849 square kilometers, is home to five different species of mountain goaties . The park is home to Seraue , Gorale , Himalayan Tahre , Blue Sheep and Tibetan Argalis . The park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Kangchenjunga  - collection of images, videos and audio files

English websites

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Pointdexter, Joseph: Between heaven and earth. The 50 highest peaks. Könemann, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-8290-3561-6 , p. 41
  2. ^ Günter Oskar Dyhrenfurth : To the third pole. The eight-thousanders on earth. Nymphenburger Verlags-Handlung, Munich 1952, p. 123f.
  3. ↑ Eberhard Jurgalski : Height and chart difference (prominence) on www.8000ers.com .
  4. ↑ On both expeditions see: Paul Bauer : Kampf um den Himalaja. Reprint. Knorr & Hirth, Munich / Ulm 1952.
  5. ^ Map of the Zemu Glacier (in red the paths and camps of the 1931 expedition).
  6. ^ IUCN / SSC Caprinae Specialist Group: Wild Sheep and Goats and their Relatives. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan for Caprinae. Edited and compiled by David M. Shackleton. IUCN, Cambridge 1997, ISBN 2-8317-0353-0 , p. 218.
This text is based on a translation of the article en: Kanchenjunga from the English Wikipedia , version dated September 7, 2004.