A view of Mount Everest on the left, Lhotse in the center and Nuptse on right as seen from Pumo Ri mountain on the Nepal-Tibet border.
Thinkstock and Korean Lhotse South Face Team, via Desnivel.com
The World's 'Eight-Thousander' Mountains: Photos
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The world's 14 "eight-thousanders" -- mountains taller than 8,000 meters (26,247 feet) -- are all located in Asia. On one hand, they really beautify a horizon, but on the other they present a fierce, at times fatal, challenge to mountain climbers. Beauty can, indeed, be deadly. Here's the "baby" of the bunch, Shishapangma in Tibet, peaking at 8,027 meters (26,335 feet).
Keren Su/Corbis
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This is Gasherbrum II (we'll have another Gasherbrum coming up shortly), on the border of Pakistan and China. It's 8,035 meters up in the sky (26,361 feet) and is sometimes known as K4. These mountaineers are near the summit.
Hubert Ayasse/Sygma/Corbis
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On the left side of this picture we see the sheer mass of Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain on the planet at 8,047 meters or 26,394 feet above sea level.
Ed Darack/Science Faction/Corbis
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As promised, here's another Gasherbrum: Gasherbrum I. (Gasherbrum, translated from the Tibetan language Balti, means "beautiful mountain.") It also goes by the name of K5, lives along the China-Pakistan border and is 8,080 meters (26,444 ft) high.
Galen Rowell/Corbis
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The Himalayan mountain range Annapurna, in Nepal, is seen here from Pkhara, about 124 miles (200 kilometers) west of Kathmandu. Annapurna is considered one of the most dangerous for climbers; first crested in 1950, it has since been climbed by more than 100 people but taken 53 lives along the way.
Didier Marti
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This somewhat unsettling photo was taken in 1931 by mountaineers at a base camp on Pakistan's Nanga Parbat, the ninth-tallest eight-thousander at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). The area captured in the picture is known as the Nanga Wall.
Getty Images
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Eighth-tallest of the eight-thousanders is Nepal's Manaslu, at 8,163 meters (26,781 feet).
Association Chantal Mauduit Namaste/Corbis/Sygma
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The Dhaulagiri mountain range in the Himalayas sports a rather volcanic look in this picture, with the sun brushing its top. But Nepal's 8,167-meter (26,795-foot) monster is of course quite chilly on top. Dhaulagiri's south face is considered by mountaineers to be a next-to-impossible climb, and no one has ever topped the mountain from that side.
AFP/Getty Images
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Clouds hover over snow-covered Cho Oyu mountain in Tibet. The sixth-tallest mountain stands 8,201 meters tall (26,906 feet), and the "Mountain Goddess" (in Tibetan translation) is considered one of less-challenging climbs among the eight-thousanders (if you don't consider climbing ANY mountain a challenge, that is!).
Galen Rowell/Corbis
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Next in the eight-thousander club is Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, looming on the border between Nepal and China. It's 8,463 meters (27,766 feet) tall and is another tough climb, with 22 deaths tallied against its 206 successful climbs.
WildCountry/CORBIS
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Standing 8,516 meters tall (27,940 feet), Lhotse, fourth-tallest, rests on the border of Nepal and Tibet. It was first climbed in 1956.
Pal Teravagimov Photography
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Kangchenjunga, in Nepal, is the world's third-tallest mountain, edging Lhotse by just 71 meters, standing 8,587 meters tall (28,169 feet). It's a prominent mark on the horizon in Darjeeling, the tea-growing region.
Jochen Schlenker
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K2, the second-tallest mountain on the planet, is 8,611 meters up in the clouds (28,251 feet) along the China-Pakistan border. Climbers know it for its incredibly difficult ascent routes; in 2008, an ice fall on the treacherous slopes took the lives of 11 climbers.
Brad Jackson
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And now we reach the Big Daddy in the worldwide mountains club. That, of course, would be Mount Everest. Its name alone is synonymous with challenging feats, as climbing it continues to this day to be a dicey endeavor, though it draws people year after year to attempt the ascent. And what a climb: Mount Everest stands 8,848 meters tall (29,029 feet). It was famously crested for the first time in 1953 by New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay.
Grant Dixon
Extreme mountain climbers flock to Mount Everest every May for a chance to climb the world’s tallest peak.
But just next door, another peak beckons -- Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world. Lhotse, which means “South Peak” in Tibetan, is connected to the Everest massif via the South Col. Like Everest, a number of climbers make it to the top, but few try so late in the year. And even fewer have made it up the south face. The last successful summit occured 25 years ago.
This year, one daring Korean expedition team tried four times — and failed. They’re lucky to have survived.
Experienced climber Hong Sung Taek led the expedition with Sherpas and young climbers. Their goal was to summit the mountain along the south face. This side only has two routes, and they’re so insanely difficult that the last time anyone summited was 25 years agoand it was achieved by a Soviet team.
The Korean Lhotse South Face team arrived at base camp in early October, and established three camps over the next few weeks, the Altitude Pakistan blog reported.
This is an odd time of year to try ascending any Himalayan peaks. Monsoons in the region typically leave mountain climbers with two small weather windows. May is the most popular, but a second one can open up in the fall, AccuWeather’s Brian Lada explained.
Except that second window was almost non-existent this year because the monsoon over eastern Nepal departed so late, Lada continued. On neighboring Everest, heavy snow and strong winds forced Japanese climber Nobukazu Kurikito abandon his autumn expedition. He would have been the first to summit the mountain since the deadly earthquake in April. Nobody stood on the top this year.
The Koreans kept at it. Their first attempt during the second week of November ended when a storm pushed them back. A second and third attempt brought them closer and closer to their goal, the Spanish mountaineering magazine Desnivel reported.
A final and fourth attempt took place this week. Barely arriving at their first camp, they discovered high winds with gusts more than 90 mph. Then, during the descent, they encountered rockfalls that sent one Sherpa to the hospital.
This was Hong Sung Taek’s third consecutive year on Lhotse’s south face. It was a rough season, but I have a feeling we’re going to see him back on this mountain again.