Kangchenjunga

• 1. Introduction

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  Kangchenjunga rises 8586 metres above sea level on the border between Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim. On the 25th of May 1955, two British climbers named Joe Brown and George Band worked their way up its final slopes and stopped just short of the true summit. They had given their word to Tashi Namgyal, the Chogyal of the Kingdom of Sikkim, that the top of the mountain would stay untouched.

  Why would a team that had come so far hold back from the prize? Why did mapmakers once believe this peak was the tallest on Earth? And what do the people who live in its shadow say lies hidden beneath its snow? The answers run through survey chains, vanished climbers, a legendary valley and one of the most dangerous summits in the world.

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• 2. Treasures and Demons

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  The name Kanchinjínga comes from four Tibetan words. The brothers Hermann, Adolf and Robert Schlagintweit unpicked them: "gangs" for snow and ice, "chen" for great, "mdzod" for treasure, and "lnga" for five. Together they give "the five treasures of the high snow".

  The local Lhopo people hold that those treasures stay hidden. They reveal themselves to the devout only when the world is in peril. The list includes salt, gold, turquoise and precious stones, sacred scriptures, invincible armour or ammunition, and grain and medicine.

  The spelling Kangchenjunga has been the official form for the Indian Government since the late 19th century. Douglas Freshfield, Alexander Mitchell Kellas and the Royal Geographical Society adopted it because it best matches the Tibetan sound in English. Kanchenjunga, Khangchendzonga and Kangchendzönga still appear in print.

  A darker figure also haunts these slopes. Local belief speaks of a mountain deity called Dzö-nga, the Kangchenjunga Demon, described as a kind of yeti or rakshasa. In 1925, a British geological expedition claimed to have seen a bipedal creature. When the team asked local people about it, they gave it that same name.

  The singer Kate Bush listed the Kangchenjunga Demon among the yeti's many names in her song Wild Man. In a 2011 interview with The Quietus, she called the song an empathetic view of a creature of great mystery.

  Writers have borrowed the setting too. Raymond Benson's 1999 James Bond novel High Time to Kill sends a stolen secret formula crashing onto the mountain's slopes in a plane. Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, which won the 2006 Man Booker Prize, is set partly in Kalimpong, a hill station near the peak.

  The oldest story is about a place rather than a monster. Lepcha and Limbu communities, along with followers of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, tell of a valley of immortality hidden on the slopes. Tibetans call it Beyul Demoshong. In 1962, a Tibetan lama named Tulshuk Lingpa led more than 300 followers into the high snows to open the way to it.

  A little over a century before that procession, surveyors had been asking a far more earthly question about how tall the mountain really was.

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• 3. A Mistaken Crown

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  For a time before 1852, geographers took it for granted that Kangchenjunga was the highest mountain in the world. Then the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India finished its careful measurements in 1849. They showed that a summit then labelled Peak XV, now called Mount Everest, stood higher. After further checking of the sums, the 1856 announcement placed Kangchenjunga behind Everest and K2 in the Karakoram.

  The mountain sits about 125 km east-southeast of Everest in a straight line. It rises roughly 20 km south of the general line of the Great Himalayan range. Just below its southern face runs the Singalila Ridge, 3000-3500 m high, which separates Sikkim from Nepal and northern West Bengal.

  Height is not the only yardstick. By topographic prominence, which gauges how independent a mountain stands, Kangchenjunga ranks only 29th. Its key col lies at 4664 m, on the watershed between the Arun and Brahmaputra rivers in Tibet. Even so, it is the fourth-most-prominent peak in the Himalayas, after Everest, Nanga Parbat and Namcha Barwa.

  The massif is shaped like a giant cross. Its main ridge runs from north-northeast to south-southwest, and east-west ridges cross it. Together they carry peaks between 6000 and 8586 m, and the wider Kangchenjunga Himal holds 16 summits above 7000 m.

  Five peaks stand tallest. Yalung Kang, also called Kangchenjunga West, reaches 8505 m. South follows at 8494 m, Central at 8482 m, and Kangbachen at 7903 m. The northern section also holds Kirat Chuli and Gimmigela Chuli, while Siniolchu lines the eastern ridge in Sikkim. Kabru I to III run along the southern border, and the western ridge ends at Kumbhakarna, which is also known as Jannu.

  Four main glaciers radiate from the peak. The Zemu glacier in the northeast and the Talung glacier in the southeast drain toward the Teesta River. The Yalung glacier in the southwest and the Kangchen glacier in the northwest drain toward the Arun and Kosi rivers.

  Ice covers about 314 km2 above roughly 5000 m, spread across 120 glaciers, of which 17 are debris-covered. Between 1958 and 1992, more than half of 57 glaciers that researchers examined had retreated, possibly because of global warming.

  The summit also sits at the top of the Brahmaputra River basin. It is one of six peaks above 8000 m in the basin of the Kosi River, a major tributary of the Ganges. The landscape draped around those glaciers is shared by four countries.

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• 4. Living Landscape

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  Three distinct ecoregions meet around Kangchenjunga: eastern Himalayan broad-leaved and coniferous forests, eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows, and the Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands. Nepal, India, Bhutan and China share this transboundary landscape. It contains 14 protected areas covering 6032 km2.

  Nepal contributes the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area. Sikkim holds seven protected areas, among them Khangchendzonga National Park, the Varsey Rhododendron Sanctuary and the Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary. Darjeeling has five, including Singalila National Park and Neora Valley National Park. Bhutan adds the Torsa Strict Nature Reserve.

  Rhododendrons and orchids are among the globally significant plants growing here. The animals include the snow leopard, Asian black bear and red panda. White-bellied musk deer, blood pheasant and chestnut-breasted partridge live here as well.

  In 2016, the adjoining Khangchendzonga National Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Plant collectors reached these forests long before mountaineers reached the snow.

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• 5. Explorers and Crowley's Retreat

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  Between April 1848 and February 1849, Joseph Dalton Hooker based himself in Darjeeling and explored northern Sikkim and eastern Nepal. He came mainly to collect plants and study how Himalayan flora is distributed. On repeated excursions he pushed into the foothills of Kangchenjunga as high as 15620 ft.

  In spring 1855, the German explorer Hermann von Schlagintweit reached Darjeeling but could go no farther north because of the Third Nepal-Tibet War. In May he explored the Singalila Ridge as far as the peak of Tonglo, gathering weather observations.

  In 1879, Sarat Chandra Das and Lama Ugyen-gyatso crossed into Tibet west of the mountain on their way to Lhasa, passing through Tashilhunpo Monastery. They came back by the same route in 1881.

  In 1883, William Woodman Graham and two Swiss mountaineers climbed in the area. They ascended Kabru to within 30-40 ft of its summit. They also crossed the Kang La pass and climbed a peak of nearly 19000 ft to study Jannu. Judging the season too late for a serious attempt, they returned to Darjeeling.

  Between October 1885 and January 1886, Rinzin Namgyal surveyed the unexplored north and west sides of the mountain. He was the first native surveyor to map the full circuit and sketched each side along with the adjoining valleys. He also defined the frontiers of Nepal, Tibet and Sikkim in that area.

  In 1899, the British mountaineer Douglas Freshfield set out with the Italian photographer Vittorio Sella. They were the first mountaineers to study the lower and upper ramparts and the great western face rising from the Kangchenjunga Glacier.

  The 1905 expedition was led by Aleister Crowley, who had also been part of the 1902 team on K2. His party reached an estimated 6500 m on the southwest side before turning back. How high they truly climbed is unclear. On the 31st of August, Crowley wrote, "We were certainly over 21000 ft and possibly over 22000 ft", before the risk of avalanche forced a retreat to Camp 5.

  On the 1st of September, Reymond, Pache and Salama crossed the bad patch that had stopped them the day before. They vanished out of sight and hearing, then returned to Crowley and the men carrying packs, who could not pass the dangerous section with their loads. Crowley summed up: "We had reached a height of approximately 25000 ft."

  The descent that followed, from Camp 5 toward Camp 3, was one Crowley called "mutinous" because it began late in the day. An avalanche killed the climber Alexis Pache, who had been among the three to climb possibly higher than anyone before, and three local porters. One of the men insisted that "the demon of Kangchenjunga was propitiated with the sacrifice". Crowley decided the accident made it impossible to continue.

  Two years later, another approach was tried from the opposite side.

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• 6. Storms and Disappearances

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  In 1907, two Norwegians tried to reach the summit through Jongri and up the Kabru glacier to the south. Graham's party had apparently rejected that approach. Progress was slow, partly because of supply and porter problems and probably poor fitness and acclimatisation. From a high camp at about 22600 ft, they reached a point 50 or 60 ft below the top before strong winds turned them back.

  In 1929, the German Paul Bauer led a team up the northeast spur to 7400 m. A five-day storm drove them back down.

  That same May, the American E. F. Farmer left Darjeeling with local porters, crossed the Kang La into Nepal and climbed toward the Talung Saddle. His porters refused to go further. He continued alone through drifting mists and did not return.

  In 1930, Günter Dyhrenfurth led an international expedition that included the German Uli Wieland, the Austrian Erwin Schneider and the Englishman Frank Smythe. Poor weather and snow conditions defeated them.

  In 1931, Paul Bauer returned for a second German attempt on the northeast spur. Bad weather, illness and deaths turned the team back. Peter Aufschnaiter was among them, and they got 300 m higher than in 1929.

  In 1954, John Kempe led a reconnaissance party of John W. Tucker, S. R. Jackson, G. C. Lewis and T. H. Braham, with Donald Stafford Matthews as medical officer. They explored the upper Yalung glacier, looking for a practical way up to the great ice shelf across the southwest face. Their findings would be tested within a year.

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• 7. The Great Shelf

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  The team that gathered in 1955 was led by Charles Evans. It also included Joe Brown, George Band, Norman Hardie, Tony Streather, John Angelo Jackson, John Clegg, Neil Mather and Tom Mackinnon. They first tried the line that John Kempe's party had scouted. Difficulties on it pushed them toward the Yalung Face, which Crowley's party had first explored in 1905.

  The route begins on the Yalung Glacier southwest of the peak and climbs a face 3000 m high. Its central feature is the Great Shelf, a large sloping plateau at around 7500 m, covered by a hanging glacier. Most of the way is snow and glacier, with a single icefall. The summit ridge can involve a little rock.

  The climbers placed six camps above base camp: two below the Shelf, two on it and two above it.

  Brown and Band made the first ascent on the 25th of May 1955. Hardie and Streather followed on the 26th of May. By the 28th of May, everyone was back at base camp.

  Both leaders and climbers later wrote about it. Brown told his version in The Hard Years, and Evans titled his own account Kangchenjunga The Untrodden Peak, with a foreword by the Duke of Edinburgh.

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• 8. Firsts and Losses

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  In 1973, Yutaka Ageta and Takeo Matsuda of a Japanese expedition climbed Kangchenjunga West by the southwestern ridge. Matsuda never returned to camp, and his body was never found. The expedition concluded he fell during the descent after he and Ageta became separated.

  In 1977, an Indian Army team led by Colonel Narendra Kumar made the second ascent. They finished the northeast spur, the ridge that had defeated the German expeditions of 1929 and 1931.

  In 1978, Wojciech Wróż and Eugeniusz Chrobak made the first ascents of Kangchenjunga South on the 19th of May. Wojciech Brański, Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich and Kazimierz Olech climbed Kangchenjunga Central on the 22nd of May.

  On the 16th of May 1979, Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker made the third ascent. It was the first without oxygen and opened a new route on the North Ridge.

  Pierre Beghin made the first solo ascent in 1983. In 1985, an American-led team of three under Chris Chandler tried the first winter ascent from the north side, and Chandler died on the attempt. On the 11th of January 1986, Jerzy Kukuczka and Krzysztof Wielicki completed the first winter ascent, following the southwest route of the original expedition.

  In 1992, Carlos Carsolio made the only summit of the year, a solo climb without supplementary oxygen. Boyan Petrov of Bulgaria later reached the summit without supplemental oxygen in May 2014.

  Women's ascents have their own record. Ginette Harrison was the first woman to climb the North Face, in 1998. In 2009, the Spanish mountaineer Edurne Pasaban reached the summit and became the first woman to summit twelve eight-thousanders. That same month, Kinga Baranowska became the first Polish woman on top. In May 2014, Chhanda Gayen became the first Indian woman to summit, and an avalanche killed her on the descent.

  In 2011, Tunç Fındık became the first Turkish man to reach the peak, his seventh eight-thousander, with the Swiss partner Guntis Brandts on the British 1955 southwest route. In May of that year, the Indian mountaineers Basanta Singha Roy and Debasish Biswas scaled the Main summit.

  The mountain has also taken many lives. On the 6th of October 1995, Benoît Chamoux, Pierre Royer and their Sherpa guide Riku disappeared near the summit. In May 2013, five climbers including the Hungarians Zsolt Erőss and Péter Kiss reached the top but vanished during the descent. Narayanan Iyer died on a summit push in May 2022, and in May 2023 Luis Stitzinger died attempting to ski down after reaching the top.

  Despite improved gear, since the 1990s more than 20% of the people attempting the main peak have died.

  Four climbing routes lead to the summit. Three run through Nepal from the southwest, northwest and northeast, and one climbs from northeastern Sikkim in India. That Sikkim route has been completed only three times. Since 2000, the Indian government has banned expeditions, so the route has been closed.

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