Elevation 7,135 m Prominence 2,404 m Parent range Himalayas | First ascent 1953 Mountain range Himalayas Listing Ultra-prominent peak | |
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Easiest route West Ridge: glacier/snow/ice climb Similar Stok Kangri, Kang Yatze, Kamet, Rimo I, Harmukh | ||
Stunning sunrise glow over the nun kun peaks
The Nun Kun mountain massif consists of a pair of Himalayan peaks: Nun, 7,135 m (23,409 ft) and its neighbor peak Kun, 7,077 m (23,218 ft). Nun is the highest peak in the part of the Himalayan range lying on the Indian side of the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. (There are higher peaks in the Indian part of the Karakoram range.) The massif is located near the Suru valley, about 250 km (160 mi) east of Srinagar, the state capital.
Contents
Map of Nun, 194301
Kun is located north of Nun and is separated from it by a snowy plateau of about 4 km (2.5 mi) in length. Pinnacle Peak, 6,930 m (22,736 ft), is the third highest summit of the group.
Mountaineering
Early exploration of the massif included a visit in 1898 and three visits by Arthur Neve, in 1902, 1904, and 1910. In 1903, Dutch mountaineer Dr. H. Sillem investigated the massif and discovered the high plateau between the peaks; he reached an altitude of 6,400 m (21,000 ft) on Nun. In 1906, noted explorer couple Fanny Bullock Workman and her husband William Hunter Workman, claimed an ascent of Pinnacle Peak. They also toured extensively through the massif and produced a map; however, controversy surrounded the Workmans' claims, and few trigonometrical points were given for the region, so that the map they produced was not usable.
After unsuccessful attempts to climb the mountain in 1934, 1937, and 1946 the first ascent of Nun was in 1953 by a French-Swiss-Indian-Sherpa team led by Bernard Pierre and Pierre Vittoz, via the west ridge. The summit pair comprised Vittoz, a Moravian missionary to the Tibetans and an experienced alpinist, and Claude Kogan, a pioneering female mountaineer. Since then, other routes have been pioneered. The north-west face was first ascended on 27 October. and 28., 1976 by seven climbers from a Czech expedition, led by F. Čejka. The first British ascent was made by Steve Berry and friends via the east ridge in 1981 (his father had attempted Nun in 1946).
Italian mountaineer Mario Piacenza made the first ascent of Kun in 1913, via the north-east ridge. Fifty-eight years passed before the second recorded attempt on the peak, which resulted in a successful ascent by an expedition from the Indian Army.
The massif is most conveniently accessed from the road connecting Kargil and Leh.