What is "gasherbrum"

Gasherbrum \Gasherbrum\ prop. n. A mountain in Kashmir, 26,470 feet high. [proper name]

Gasherbrum is a remote group of peaks located at the northeastern end of the Baltoro Glacier in the Karakoram range of the Himalaya on the border of the Chinese-administered Shaksgam Valley and the Gilgit-Baltistan territory of Pakistan. The massif contains three of the world's 8,000 metre peaks (if one includes Broad Peak). Gasherbrum is often claimed to mean "Shining Wall", presumably a reference to the highly visible face of Gasherbrum IV; but in fact it comes from "rgasha" (beautiful) + "brum" (mountain) in Balti, hence it actually means "beautiful mountain".

Peak

metres

feet

Latitude (N)

Longitude (E)

Prominence (m)

Gasherbrum I

8,080

26,509

35°43′27″

76°41′48″

2,155

Broad Peak

8,047

26,400

35°48′35″

76°34′06″

1,701

Gasherbrum II

8,035

26,362

35°45′27″

76°39′15″

1,523

Gasherbrum III

7,952

26,089

35°45′34″

76°38′31″

355

Gasherbrum IV

7,925

26,001

35°45′39″

76°37′00″

725

Gasherbrum V

7,147

23,448

35°43′45″

76°36′48″

654

Gasherbrum VI

6,979

22,897

35°42′30″

76°37′54″

520

In 1856, Thomas George Montgomerie, a British Royal Engineers lieutenant and a member of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India, sighted a group of high peaks in the Karakoram from more than 200 km away. He named five of these peaks K1, K2, K3, K4 and K5 where the K denotes Karakoram. Today, K1 is known as Masherbrum, K3 as Broad Peak, K4 as Gasherbrum II and K5 as Gasherbrum I. Only K2, the second highest mountain in the world, has kept Montgomerie's name.