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The Highest Unclimbed Mountain In The World
And why it hasn’t been conquered
Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world and perhaps the most famous. Since Sir Edmund Hillary first reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, an additional 6,600 people have made the incredible climb. Reaching the peak of Mount Everest is still a difficult task, and it often results in a number of deaths each year. While Mount Everest is swarming with perspective climbers and dreamers, it raises a question. What is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world? If the tallest mountain in the world has been conquered, what mountains are left to be summited?
Lying roughly 220 miles east of Mount Everest stands Gangkhar Puensum, the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. Gangkhar Puensum resides in a remote corner of the nation of Bhutan. Gangkhar Puensum has a height of 24,836 ft and a prominence of 9,826 ft, both impressive numbers. To this day, no one has successfully reached the summit despite it being nearly a mile shorter than Mount Everest.
What makes Gangkhar Puensum a challenge to conquer? Why hasn’t anyone reached the peak of this tantalizing prize?
Bhutan’s Resistance To Climbers
Bhutan considers the highest mountains in their country to be sacred places. Bhutan is one of the most mountainous and rugged places on Earth. The people of Bhutan have long been deeply connected to their mountains. The name Gangkhar Puensum means the White Peak of the Three Spiritual Brothers in the local language. (Dzongkha is the official language of Bhutan.) Due to the fact that the Bhutanese consider these peaks to be sacred places and vital parts of their heritage, they have long resisted any foreign attempt to climb them.
Bhutan tentatively opened the country up to mountaineering in 1983. Four expeditions attempted to reach the summit of Gangkhar Puensum between 1983 and 1994. All of them failed. Poor weather, harsh conditions and a general lack of knowledge of the mountain contributed to the failures. (Due to its popularity, Mount Everest has become one of the best mapped and understood mountains on Earth, with thousands of guides and experts intimately familiar with the peak.)
