In mountaineering, a false peak or false summit is a peak that appears to be the pinnacle of the mountain but upon reaching, it turns out the summit is higher. False peaks can have significant effects on climber's psychological state by inducing feelings of dashed hopes or even failure. The term false peak can also be applied to non-mountaineering activities where obstacles posing as the end goal produce the same psychological effects.
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False peak Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA