Mountain Peak
Kangchenjunga
Also known as Khangchendzonga
Kangchenjunga, on the border of Sikkim and Nepal, is the highest mountain in India and the third-highest in the world.
On a clear winter morning in Darjeeling or Gangtok, the first sunlight turns the snows of Kangchenjunga pink and then gold. At 8,586 metres it is the highest mountain in India and the third-highest in the world, standing on the border between Sikkim and Nepal.
The name is usually translated as "the five treasures of the snow", referring to its five peaks. For the people of Sikkim the mountain is a guardian deity, and the first climbers to reach the top in 1955 stopped just short of the true summit out of respect for that belief – a tradition many later expeditions have followed.
The Indian side of the massif is protected in Khangchendzonga National Park, inscribed in 2016 as India's first "mixed" UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognised for both its natural and cultural values.