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Melungtse

Mountain in Tibet, China

Summary

Mountain in Tibet, China

Field	Value
name	Melungtse
other_name	门隆则峰
photo	File:Melungtse.jpg
photo_caption	Southwestern aspect of Melungtse from an aircraft. Main summit in the background on the right, Melungtse II is the left peak on the ridge in the foreground.
elevation_m	7181
elevation_ref
prominence_m	1551
prominence_ref
range	Rolwaling Himal, Himalayas
listing
map	China Tibet topography
map_caption	Location in Tibet
map_size	260
label_position	right
country	China
region	Tibet
coordinates
coordinates_ref
first_ascent	October 23, 1992 by Marko Prezelj and Andrej Štremfelj
easiest_route	snow/ice climb
mapframe	yes
mapframe-zoom	11

| mapframe-zoom = 11

Melungtse (; ; ; other English spelling: Menlungtse) is the highest mountain of the Rolwaling Himal in the Himalayas.

The peak has a long summit ridge capped by the east (main) summit and the west summit, also known as Melungtse II, at 7,023 m. The mountain's steep faces make it more difficult than its elevation would suggest.

Location

Melungtse (right) and [[Gauri Sankar]] (left)

Melungtse lies just north of the Nepal–China border, on a western spur ridge coming out of the main north-south trending ridge of the Rolwaling Himal, in Tingri County, Shigatse Prefecture of Tibet. To the southwest, across the Menlung Chu, lies Gauri Sankar, which, though a bit lower (7134 m), is much more visible from Nepal, hence better-known. Melungtse lies about 40 km west of Mount Everest.

Climbing history

Melungtse was off limits to climbing until quite recently. The first attempt was made in Oct 1982 when Bill Denz made a strictly illegal attempt on the southeast ridge, after sneaking over the border from Nepal's Rolwaling Valley. However he turned back while still low on the route. In 1987 and 1988 Chris Bonington led two expeditions, with the second one succeeding in putting Andy Fanshawe and Alan Hinkes on the west summit, but did not climb the main summit. Another attempt in 1990, this time on the East Ridge of the main summit, failed well below the top.

The first ascent of the main peak came in 1992. Slovenians Marko Prezelj and Andrej Štremfelj ascended the dangerous, 2000 m southeast face in less than two and a half days up and down and reached the summit on October 23.

An attempt via the North Face in 1999 reached a spot on the eastern end about 1600 m below the summit. However, an ensuing nine day storm dumped too much snow on the upper route and the attempt was aborted. The expedition leader attempted the North Face again in 2005 along with two Russian climbers but aborted the attempt at around 6300 m after one of the Russians was unable to continue due to injury.

References

Sources

Andy Fanshawe and Stephen Venables, Himalaya Alpine-Style, Hodder and Stoughton, 1995.
Koichiro Ohmori, Over the Himalaya. Cloudcap/The Mountaineers, 1994.
American Alpine Journal
Himalayan Index
DEM files for the Himalaya (Corrected versions of SRTM data)
Tibet Ultra-Prominences on peaklist.org

References

"High Asia II: Himalaya of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and adjoining region of Tibet". Peaklist.org.
Bonington, Chris. (1988). "Menlungtse Attempt".
Bonington, Chris. (1989). "Menlungtse Western Summit".
Child, Greg. (1991). "Menlungtse Attempt".
Štremfelj, Andrej. (1993). "Menlungtse, Rolwaling Himal".
Buhler, Carlos. (2000). "Menlungtse, Attempt, and Milarepa, Ascent".
Buhler, Carlos. (2000). "THE 1999 MENLUNGTSE/MILAREPA EXPEDITION TO TIBET". [[Himalayan Journal]].
Buhler, Carlos. (2006). "Menlungtse, North Face Attempt".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

mountains-of-tibet seven-thousanders-of-the-himalayas ultra-prominent-peaks-of-asia

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