Kānchenjunga

Kānchenjunga, mountain, south central Asia, in the Himalayas, on the frontier between Nepal and Sikkim, India. The mountain, the third highest in the world, has five peaks; the highest is 8,598 m (28,209 ft) above sea level. In 1929 a Bavarian expedition attempted to climb the mountain, but failed. In 1931 another German party set out to make the ascent. Two members of the party were killed in a fall, and the group was forced to abandon the climb. The area of the summit was finally reached in 1955 by a British expedition led by the Welsh educator and mountaineer Charles Evans, one of the leaders of the expedition that conquered Mount Everest. In deference to local religious beliefs, they stopped a few meters short of the summit.