🏔🇳🇵🇮🇳Kangchenjunga 8,586m/28,169ft ~ Summited ~ May 6, 2022
Jun 28, 2022This was my 10th trip to Nepal in nine years. Having worked in the highest Himalayas for nearly a decade I thought I knew mountains but I had never seen or experienced anything like the Kangchenjunga massif. At 8,586m/28,169ft Kanchenjunga is Earth’s third tallest mountain and one of the world’s most challenging 8,000m peaks to climb.
On the border of Nepal and India, Kangchenjunga is the highest and holiest peak in India. It is named “Treasury of Five Snows” for the five distinct summits.
The technical ascent is 10,000ft of glacial ice capped by a steep rocky summit that is both high and vast. The mountainscape is otherworldly and daily weather patterns create severe changes in conditions. Despite the intensity and physical demands the experience was profound, phenomenal and fun! I am thrilled and honored to have been one of only three hundred climbers to have summited this complex peak since it was originally climbed in 1955. Kanchenjunga was truly beyond my wildest dreams.
Hugs, joy, awe and gratitude to Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita who with this summit accomplished her dream of climbing Earth’s five highest peaks! Huge thanks also to the big mountain experts and fixing teams that made the Kangchenjunga expedition possible – Pioneer Expeditions, Imagine Nepal, Mingma D Sherpa, Sanu Sherpa, Tashi Sherpa, Dendup Sherpa and so many others.
In Light,
Cira
“Those who first climb Kangchenjunga will acheive he greatest feat in mountineering. It is a mountain which combines not only the severe handicaps of wind, weather and very high altitude. But technical climbing problems and objective dangers of an order even higher than those we encountered on Everest.” -John Hunt, Leader of the British Everest Expedition, 1953
