How Many 8000-meter Mountains are There?

Nepal continues to try to expand the number of 8000-meter mountains from 8 to 14, but it’s not their decision. It will take approval from the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) to become official; even then, I doubt it will generate a sea change in the 8000er world.

Mountaineering is famous for these disputes, for example, when winter begins and ends and how many continents there are. This leads to the question of whether there are five, six, seven, eight or nine “Seven Summits.”

Decades-Long Discussion

The subject of Nepal’s 8000ers, this is not a new fight, as the Kathmandu Post notes: “In November 2013, a 10-member committee led by Purna Chandra Bhattarai, then joint secretary at the Tourism Ministry, submitted a 113-page report recommending the inclusion of these six new peaks.”

The UIAA has considered Nepal’s suggestions for over a decade, so I don’t see any rush to a judgment. On their site:

The Nepal Mountaineering Association and the Nepalese government are to be commended for raising this issue inasmuch as it relates to the 8000 metre peaks in Nepal. Their investigations suggest that there may be as many as six more points over 8000 metres which would change the landscape of the quest for the “8000ers” more than somewhat. All of the “new” points are associated with the currently known 8000 metre mountains and have, in the past, been considered as subsidiary peaks of the main massifs involved.

The primary issue, common to all of mountaineering, is lack of standard: what is a “summit,” a “guide,” and even a “peak?” as this statement on the UAII site demonstrates: “While there is a lack of a full consensus it was established that there is no one definition of a “mountain” or a “peak” or a “top” or “point” in topographic terms.”

What is a Summit and Prominence?

Prominence plays a key role in this discussion. The USGS defines it as “Prominence, is a term in topography that refers to the elevation of a summit relative to its surrounding terrain.”

Or in simple English, as my good friend Mark Horrell wrote on his blog in 2013, “Whether they can be considered separate peaks depends on a measure known as topographic prominence, the amount of re-ascent from the col separating them from their parent peak.

The UIAA considers a peak a mountain summit if it has a prominence of at least 300 meters (980 feet).

The UIAA lists 82 summits higher than 4000 meters (13,123 feet) in the Alps using this criteria:

1. Topographic criterium: for each summit, the level difference between it and the highest adjacent pass or notch should be at least 30 m (calculated as the average of the summits at the limit of acceptability). An additional criterium can be the horizontal distance between a summit and the base of another adjacent 4000er.

2. Morphological criterium: considers the overall morphology and aspect of a summit (applied especially for shoulders, secondary summits, rock outcrops, etc.).

3. Mountaineering criteria: It considers the importance of a summit from the point of view of mountaineering, the qualities of the routes reaching it, its historical significance, and how frequently it is climbed.

Maroon Bells alanarnette.com 2004

The last point plays a key role in my home state of Colorado, in the U.S. We love to argue about how many mountains are higher than 14,000 feet (4267m).

Some say 58, others 52, but it comes down to the altitude difference between the summits. Most purists use 300 feet as the minimum prominence, but exceptions exist. The Maroon Bells (North: 14,022 feet and South: 14,163 feet) have a 141-foot difference but are found on most lists.

Just when it was becoming clear, there is “Jut,” a measure of a mountain’s rise above surrounding sand impressiveness, considering its base-to-peak height and steepness.

The 8000ers

Several years ago, the website 8000ers.com ignited a minor controversy within the climbing community. It argued that most climbers who claimed they had summited all fourteen of the 800ers had not. They said most had summited sub-peaks or mistaken other high points for the true summit.

According to a New York Times article, the list shrunk from 44 to two (Viestures and Gustafsson.) They eliminated Reinhold Messner, who responded, “I will not even defend myself. If somebody would come and say, this is all bullshit what you did? Think what you want.”

After a recent rush using a style incomparable to the originals, the list grew by 15 people, including an astonishing 12 just in 2023.

Back to the 8000ers. There are fourteen mountains higher than 8000 meters or 26,000 feet:

Nepal with eight:

  1. Everest (8,848.86 meters)
  2. Kangchenjunga (8,586 meters)
  3. Lhotse (8,516 meters)
  4. Makalu (8,463 meters)
  5. Cho Oyu (8,201 meters)
  6. Dhaulagiri (8,167 meters)
  7. Manaslu (8,163 meters)
  8. Annapurna I (8,091 meters)

Pakistan with five:

  1. K2 (8,611 meters)
  2. Nanga Parbat (8,125 meters)
  3. Gasherbrum I (8,080 meters)
  4. Broad Peak (8,051 meters)
  5. Gasherbrum II (8,034 meters)

And Tibet has one, Shishapangma (8,027 meters).

8000 Bloat

The new ones Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism has added to their website’s list of Nepal’s 8000ers include (summit data from the Himalayan Database):

Subpeaks of Kangchenjunga (8586 meters)

  • Yalung Khang (8,505 meters, prominence of 135m) -53 summits
  • Yalung Khang West-(8,077 meters, prominence of 135m)-no summits
  • Kangchenjunga Central (8,473 meters, prominence of 73m)-27 summits
  • Kangchenjunga South (8,476 meters, prominence of 116m)-31 summits

Subpeaks of Lhotse

  • Lhotse Middle (8,410 meters, prominence of 60m)-9 summits
  • Lhotse Shar (8,400 meters, prominence of 86m)-24 summits

Even Pakistan has considered adding one of Broad Peaks’ (8047 meters) subpeaks, Broad Peak Central, at 8016 meters with a prominence of 196m.

Why?

It’s easy to be cynical (and I plead guilty to this on these topics) about Nepal’s desire for more money from climbers. They know climbers have egos (shock!) and are easy to draw in.

At least one candid comment is on the record. Ang Tshiring Sherpa, former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, said, “But we have been consistently lobbying with the government for international recognition of these six mountains that will boost our tourism.”

Perhaps a more cogent argument is that these subpeaks are higher than the 8000 meters, so why not? In fact, some of these have been summited by climbers on their way to the true summit, similar to passing by Everest’s South Summit (28,500′ / 8690m) to the true summit (29,031.69 feet or 8848.86-meter)

Somehow, even if the UAII approved these additions, I don’t believe Mr. Messner will climb any of them!

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything


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One thought on “How Many 8000-meter Mountains are There?

  1. Nitpicking detail: the singular of “criteria” is “criterion”, not “criterium”. (It’s from Greek, not Latin.)

    Yalung Kang looks interesting. It seems a little further from Kanchenjunga than some of the other subsidiary peaks do. I assume the col between them is shallow.

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