Did history get it wrong?
Burma may have a new tallest mountain, though so far it seems quite happy with the old one.
A mountaineering team trekked through jungles, made a brief, illegal detour through Chinese-controlled Tibet, and survived a terrifying-180-metre drop into a crevice on their way to the top of what has long been thought to be the country’s second-highest peak, Mount Gamlang.
But satellite and digital data, together with recent U.S., Russian and Chinese topographical maps, indicate it may be No. 1after all, said Andy Tyson, leader of the American-Burmese team that climbed the snow-capped mountain along the eastern edge of the Himalayas in September.
When Burma’s peaks were surveyed in 1925, when the area was part of the British Indian empire, Gamlang was measured at 5,834 metres, behind Mount Hkakabo at 5,881 metres.
However, Tyson’s team, equipped with a hand-held GPS device, measured Gamlang at 5,870 metres. And digital elevation data indicate that the British overestimated the height of Hkakabo, which may be less than 5,800 metres, Tyson added.
That would make Gamlang the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia, not just Burma.
But the country appears cool to the idea of rewriting a national statistic that schoolchildren have learned uninterrupted for nearly a century, through colonial rule, bloody coups and self-imposed isolation.
After Tyson and his team brought back the revised measurement of Gamlang, President Thein Sein wrote a letter congratulating them for scaling the “second-highest” peak.
There were no stories in the local press. Geologists at the main university in Rangoon were unaware. Students in Kachin state, home to both mountains, continue to be taught that Hkakabo is Burma’s tallest.
Burma missed many technological advances during 50 years of intellectual quarantine and the country has been struggling to catch up since its military rulers stepped aside in favour of an elected government in 2011. Very few know, for instance, that a man walked on the moon.
“As it turns out, even the mountains are unknown, or perhaps just poorly mapped,” said Tyson, a specialist in remote summit expeditions in the Himalayas, Antarctica and the Americas.
“I definitely stand behind the statement that Hkakabo may not be the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, and our ascent of Gamlang is an important step to discovering the truth,” he said.
Scott Walker, a digital cartography specialist, said a German radar topographic mapping mission currently underway will provide high-resolution and high-precision height measurements, though that data will not be available until next year.
If Gamlang does turn out to be the highest peak in Burma, it could turn into another magnet for climbers and adventure-seekers, thanks to its beauty and unique terrain, Tyson said.
“The route itself was very classic, Himalayan mountaineering,” added team member Mark Fisher. “Glacier travel, snow, ice, crevices, exposed ridgeline. A really esthetic, enjoyable climb.”