UKC

Does anyone have any idea what percentage of the peaks in the Himalayas & Karakorum have had recorded ascents?
I'll split it into two categories;those over 6000m and those over 5000m.

Was discussing the new challenges that keep getting done when this question came up. I had a random guess that it might only be approx 5%.

In reply to Hat Dude: I'd have said the converse and gone for 95% of the top of my head.

Unclimbed 6000m peaks have been a bit of a rarity for decades and within the Himalayas and Karakorum I am pretty sure the same applies to the 5000m ones.

However in some other areas like the Pamirs on the Tajikistan side of the border you will probably find unclimbed 5000ers but even their, numbers will be shrinking.

In reply to Hat Dude:

To get an answer you would first need to define what constitutes a separate peak (some minimum amount of re-ascent from higher ground is a popular method, but not the only one), and then count them in the area of interest. This is no easy task, and to my knowledge this hasn't been done for the Himalayas for re-ascents less than 1500m (see http://www.peaklist.org/ultras.html ), which gives far fewer separate mountains than one would reasonably like to see in such a list.

In reply to The Ex-Engineer:

There's a lifetime's worth of >7k in Karakoram/Himalaya in this list alone

http://www.8000ers.com/cms/en/download.html?func=download&id=168&ch...

Extend to china and there's tons of 6km peaks left.

In reply to The Ex-Engineer:


Er, no. There's dozens and dozens of *decent* unclimbed 6000ers left and hundreds left, if you count every snowy mound as well.

5000m doesn't mean much in the Himalaya-Karakoram-Pamir or even the Andes. There are many passes that high and almost countless peaks and points.

There are only 12 or 13 independent unclimbed 7000ers left, if you count peaks with at least 6% prominence - the highest being the untouchable Gangkar Punzum (7570m). There are a few more less prominent summits in this range, some even named, like Muchu Chish and Summa Ri, that would be decent climbs but don't poke up above their massif much. One of the remaining independent unclimbed 7000ers was climbed this year - Gasherbrum V (7147m), by a Korean team.

Once you get down past 6800m there's more than enough unclimbed peaks to go around, some of them really impressive. Nearly all of them never get touched or even looked at.

In reply to Hat Dude:

Thank you for the replies

I guess other factors are the restrictions of access to some areas and there are a load of heaps of choss that nobody in their right mind would want to climb.