The Tian Shan Mountains

In July - August 2005 I went trekking with "Himalayan Kingdoms" on their Celestial Mountains trip to the Tian Shan. This was my first trip using digital with my new Konika Minolta A200. I think the results are as good, if not better than film, especially those shot in RAW format (most of them).

Click the above picture for a "zoomify" view where you can zoom in and pan around. There are also zoomify versions of two other panoramas, the Aksu Glacier and Pobedy . The link to the slide shows is the Khan Tengri peak icon below left.

There are three more sections for this region on this site. Click the log to the right for a written illustrated trek log. Location shows where it all is on the Earth and the Maps section has maps of the trek and also has two computer generated flights over the region. To get back to this page you can use the drop down "Mountains".

For a computer generated view of this area click the buttons below. Left button for North Tian Shan and the right button for the South Tian Shan with Khan Tengri and Pobedy.

"The existence of this great range, otherwise known as the Celestial Mountains or Heavenly Mountains, has been known for many centuries. It runs for over 1,600 kms from Tashkent to Urumchi, beyond which it rises again as the Bogdo Ola Range. The Buddhist monk, Hsuan Tsang first described its southern fringes, in the seventh century BC. They would have been visible from the Tien Shan Nan Lu, the great Silk Road, along which Marco Polo travelled in 1273 with his father and uncle. Later, the mountains would have guided the caravans transporting costly merchandise to Kashgar and the west. However, it is only the central portion southeast of Lake Issyk-Kul, which contains the very high mountains. Here the peaks are closely grouped together, mostly in east-west ranges, near or on the former Sino-Soviet frontier. Despite the records and acute observations of the early travellers, the Tien Shan remained more legend than reality until 1856, when they were visited for the first time by a man of science, Russian geographer Peter Semyonov. His expedition discovered a cluster of some thirty snow-covered summits well over 6,000m/19,685ft, headed by the mighty Khan Tengri, 'Lord of the Sky, Prince of the Spirits'.

The first person to attempt to reach Khan Tengri was the Austrian explorer, Dr Gottfried Merzbacher, in 1902. For a long time Khan Tengri was believed to be the highest peak -certainly it is the most impressive. It can honestly be said that it must rate as one of the most beautiful of all the world's peaks in excess of 6,705m/22,000 ft."