Monday, March 15, 2010

NANGA PARBAT


The Himalayas are a great mountain range. The central Himalayan mountains are situated in Nepal, while the eastern mountains extend to the borders of Bhutan and Sikkim. The Nanga Parbat massif is the western corner pillar of the Himalayas. It is an isolated range of peaks just springing up from nothing, and is surrounded by the rivers Indus and Astore. Nanga Parbat or "Nanga Parvata" means the naked mountain. Its original and appropriate name, however, is Diamir the king of the mountains.
Nanga Parbat (main peak) has a height of 8126 meters/26,660 ft. It has three vast faces. The Rakhiot (Ra Kot) face is dominated by the north and south silver crags and silver plateau; the Diamir face is rocky in the beginning. It converts itself into ice fields around Nanga Parbat peak. The Rupal face is the highest precipice in the world. Reinhold Messner, a living legend in mountaineering from Italy, says that "every one who has ever stood at the foot of this face (4500 meters) up above the 'Tap Alpe', studied it or flown over it, could not help but have been amazed by its sheer size; it has become known as the highest rock and ice wall in the world.

Nanga Parbat has always been associated with tragedies and tribulations until it was climbed in 1953. A lot of mountaineers have perished on Nanga Parbat since 1895. Even in recent years it has claimed a heavy toll of human lives of mountaineers, in search of adventure and thrill. Its victims, have included those in pursuit of new and absolutely un-climbed routes leading to its summit.

Nanga Parbat has always been associated with tragedies and tribulations until it was climbed in 1953. A lot of mountaineers have perished on Nanga Parbat since 1895. Even in recent years it has claimed a heavy toll of human lives of mountaineers, in search of adventure and thrill. Its victims, have included those in pursuit of new and absolutely un-climbed routes leading to its summit.

It was in 1841 that a huge rock-slide from the Nanga Parbat dammed the Indus river. This created a huge lake, 55 km long, like the present Tarbela lake down-stream. The flood of water that was released when the dam broke caused a rise of 80 ft in the river's 3 level at Attock and swept away an entire Sikh army. It was also in the middle of the nineteenth century that similar catastrophes were later caused by the damming of Hunza and Shyok rivers.

The Nanga Parbat peak was discovered in the nineteenth century by Europeans. The Schlagintweit brothers, who hailed from Munich (Germany) came in 1854 to Himalayas and drew a panoramic view which is the first known picture of Nanga Parbat. In 1857 one of them was murdered in Kashgar. The curse of Nanga Parbat had begun.




























Thursday, March 11, 2010

K2 MOUNTAIN


K2 MOUNTAIN

K2 Mountain Pakistan:-

K2 is the highest mountain peak of Pakistan and is second highest peak on earth. Its height is round about 8,611 meter and is located in vast mountain range of Karakoram, northern areas of Pakistan. K2 is very difficult to climb up that many people lost their lives in trying. It is the most dangerous mountain of the world because of the massiveness in its size and in ruff climate. That’s why it is well known as the savage mountain. K2 is also known as “Chogo Ri” which means “The Great Mountain.

There been numerous attempts made on it by many expeditions mostly American but all were remained unsuccessful. K2 has few numbers of tough and fully dangerous routes. As it is on the extreme high altitude resulting into lack of oxygen is one of the difficulties faced by climbers. Second, It have very rough and ever changing weather which mostly remains in the form of dark storms and coldness. Third is the steep, exposed, and committing nature of all routes on the mountain, which makes retreat more difficult, especially during a storm. Despite many tries there has been no successful ascent during the winter.






KARAKORAM

karakoram:
Karakoram (or Karakorum) is a large mountain range spanning the borders between Pakistan, India and China, located in the regions of Gilgit-Baltistan (Pakistan), Ladakh (India), and Xinjiang region, (China). It is one of the Greater Ranges of Asia, a part of the greater Himalaya while north of the actual Himalaya Range.


Karakoram (or Karakorum) is a large mountain range spanning the borders between Pakistan, India and China, located in the regions of Gilgit-Baltistan (Pakistan), Ladakh (India), and Xinjiang region, (China). It is one of the Greater Ranges of Asia, a part of the greater Himalaya while north of the actual Himalaya Range. The range is about 500 km (311 mi) in length, and is the most heavily glaciated part of the world outside of the polar regions. The Siachen Glacier at 70 km and the Biafo Glacier at 63 km rank as the world's second and third longest glaciers outside the polar regions.
The Karakoram is bounded on the northeast by the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and on the north by the Pamir Mountains. The southern boundary of the Karakoram is formed, west to east, by the Gilgit, Indus, and Shyok Rivers, which separate the range from the northwestern end of the Himalaya range proper as these rivers converge southwestward towards the plains of Pakistan.

Due to its altitude and ruggedness, the Karakoram is much less inhabited than parts of the Himalayas further east. European explorers first visited early in the 19th century, followed by British surveyors starting in 1856.

The Muztagh Pass was crossed in 1887 by the expedition of Colonel Francis Younghusband and the valleys above the Hunza River were explored by George Cockerill in 1892. Explorations in the 1910s and 1920s established most of the geography of the region.

The Karakoram and the Himalayas are important to Earth scientists for several reasons. They are one of the world's most geologically active areas, at the boundary between two colliding continents. Therefore, they are important in the study of plate tectonics. Mountain glaciers may serve as an indicator of climate change, advancing and receding with long-term changes in temperature and precipitation. These extensive ranges may have even caused climate change when they were formed over 40 million years ago. The large amounts of rock exposed to the atmosphere are weathered (broken down) by carbon dioxide. This process removes the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, and could have caused the global climate to cool, triggering an ongoing series of ice ages.