Articles on various themes not found in: Between Sky and Earth
Nanga Parbat: A Concise History of Exploration and Mountaineering. This article starts with the 1895 Mummery Expedition and continues with each of the five German expeditions which took place in the 1930’s. It then summarizes the famous 1953 climb before touching on the expeditions to the Diamir and Rupal Faces.
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Some climbing seasons in the KH are more noteworthy than others; often because of tragedy. The summer of 1958 however has to be considered one of the greatest successes: there were five first ascents of major peaks within the Karakoram by five different national expeditions. Gasherbrum I (26,469 ft, 8068 m), Chogolisa NE (25,111 ft, 7654 m), Gasherbrum IV (26,000 ft, 7925 m), Rakaposhi (25,550 ft, 7788 m), and Haramosh (24,307 ft, 7409 m) were all climbed within a span of 42 days. Here is how that remarkable summer transpired…
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Kabru is a 24,317 ft (7412 m) peak located on a north-south oriented ridge emanating from the southern flank of Kangchenjunga. It is highly visible from the British hill station of Darjeeling- and hence attracted attention from mountaineers early on. This short article covers three expeditions: Graham 1883, Rubenson 1907, and Cooke 1935. In the first two decades of the 20th century there was a considerable amount of controversy regarding the first ascent of this peak. Who really did stand atop his peak for the first time?
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Sir Joseph Hooker was a naturalist who conducted one of the earliest scientific expeditions into the KH. From 1849-1850 he led two expeditions: the first was from Darjeeling into eastern Nepal, eventually reaching the border with Tibet. On the second expedition he crisscrossed central and northern Sikkim over a period of seven and half months. As he neared the conclusion of this expedition he was detained by the authorities for…