Gangkhar Puensum

and behind that another, and the gradient is relentless, climbing from river valleys at 2,000 metres through subtropical forest and temperate woodland and alpine scrub and finally above the treeline to the moraines and glaciers that guard the base of the mountain.

The porters who carry the expedition supplies through this terrain are among the most skilled and physically capable mountain workers in the world, men who have spent their lives carrying heavy loads through pathless forest at altitude, and even they find the approach to Gangkhar Puensum exceptionally demanding.

The mountain does not welcome visitors.

The mountain does not even acknowledge visitors.

The Seven Thousanders are nearly all accounted for.

Their summits photographed, their routes documented, their challenges catalogued in the literature of mountaineering with a thoroughness that leaves almost nothing to the imagination.

Gangkhar Puensum is the exception.

It is the one that remains.