Gongga Shan

Gongga Shan, Minya Konka in Tibetan, is the highest mountain in Sichuan and the high point of the Hengduan ranges east of the main Himalaya. It is not on the Nepal–Tibet crest. Isolation is on the order of 600 km. Early maps disagreed wildly on its height; a small American party in 1932 surveyed it and climbed it.

Terris Moore and Richard Burdsall reached the summit on 28 October 1932 by the northwest ridge. Arthur Emmons and Jack Young were the other climbing members. They used hemp rope, ten-point crampons, and no high-altitude porter support. At the time it was the highest summit Americans had reached, and one of the highest mountains yet climbed. Their book, Men Against the Clouds, is the record of that trip. A large Chinese party made the second ascent in 1957.

The mountain then earned a different reputation. Later attempts on steep ridges and faces produced a high death rate relative to the number of summits. Most successful repeats still use the northwest ridge. Gongga Shan is sacred in the local Tibetan landscape and sits far from the usual Himalayan permit circuit. On this site it is the eastern outlier: a 7,556 m peak that belongs to Sichuan, not to the Khumbu or Baltoro. explorersweb.com