5 of the Highest Peaks That Have Never Been Climbed

At just under 25,000 feet, Gangkhar Puensum is “only” the 40th tallest mountain in the world, but it’s officially the highest peak that’s never been climbed. Gangkhar Puensum is located in a remote region of Bhutan, a Buddhist kingdom bordering Tibet and India, but that’s not the reason it’s never been summited.

“Bhutan considers all of its mountains sacred,” says Smithwick. “That’s the home of the gods, so it's forbidden to go mountaineering in Bhutan.”

Seeing the crowds of tourists that swarmed nearby mountains like Everest and Annapurna, the government of Bhutan first prohibited climbing on peaks taller than 6,000 meters (19,685 feet) in 1994. Then in 2003, it completely banned all mountaineering in Bhutan.

Gangkhar Puensum means “White Peak of the Three Spiritual Brothers” in Bhutanese and will likely remain the world’s tallest unclimbed mountain for generations to come.

This Himalayan giant, a sub-peak of its parent mountain Labuche Kang, is currently classified as the “tallest non-prohibited unclimbed mountain” in the world.

In 2018, Smithwick guided an expedition that hoped to be the first to reach the summit of Labuche Kang III. In the first days of the climb, Smithwick and his fellow climbers fell into crevasses, were soaked by glacier meltwater and contended with high winds. On the final day, after climbing eight hours up a nearly vertical wall of blue ice, Smithwick’s team came within 1,300 feet of the summit, but had to turn around because of a forecast of bad weather.

In 2010, a skilled climber named Joe Puryear died climbing Labuche Kang after falling more than 1,500 feet through an unstable overhang of snow. Smithwick wasn’t willing to risk the lives of his team members to score a summit.

"The reason why I'm still kicking around is because we have a very conservative buffer on things,” says Smithwick, who has his sights set on other unclimbed peaks. “There's no rescue support out there. There's no real backup and we're far from home, so we really have to play it safe and go with what our forecast is telling us.”

Mount Kailash in the Himalayas is a monumental, pyramid-shaped wall of nearly vertical black rock covered for much of the year in snow and ice. It presents technical challenges that are tremendously exciting for experienced climbers, if only it were open for business. Like Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan, Mount Kailash is off-limits for religious reasons.

Mount Kailash is a sacred location for four religions: Bön, Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. Hindus believe that it is the home of the god Shiva and Buddhists call it the “navel of the universe.” Pilgrims from around the world travel to the base of Mount Kailash to pay their respects, but climbing the mountain is strictly forbidden.

Tibet is technically an “autonomous region” of China, and there are ongoing disputes over who has the authority to sanction climbing in Tibet. In 2001, the Chinese government issued a permit for a Spanish team to climb Mount Kailash, but it prompted a swift backlash from the international climbing community.

Smithwick says that even when governments issue climbing permits, a peak can still be considered off-limits by locals. He remembers an expedition to an unclimbed peak in Nepal in 2011 where local villagers cited a 400-year-old text stating that the mountain could only be climbed after the barley harvest was finished.

“Otherwise the gods would destroy the whole harvest, which could lead to starvation over the winter,” says Smithwick. “So we helped them finish the harvest, then we climbed.”

Summa Ri I & II are two untouched peaks in the Karakoram Mountains, the second-tallest mountain range in the world. The Karakoram spans the borders of Pakistan, China and India, and is home to K2, the second-tallest mountain after Everest, and one of the deadliest mountains in the world for climbers. Only 800 people have successfully summited K2 and nearly 100 have died trying.

At more than 23,000 feet each, Summa Ri I & II are two of the tallest unclimbed peaks on the planet, but they’re largely unknown because of their extremely difficult location. Access to the mountains is cut off by glaciers and deep crevasses, and the entire region is highly prone to avalanches.

When climbers like Smithwick research unclimbed peaks, they start with mountaineering publications like the Himalayan Journal or the American Alpine Journal to see if any ascents have been attempted and what routes they took. Climbers also use Google Earth to research access points and potential locations for base camps.

For now, no one has even set foot on Summa Ri I & II, a sign of just how inaccessible and forbidding these peaks are.

Mount Siple is small by mountain-climbing standards at just 10,200 feet, but this volcanic mountain off the coast of western Antarctica resides in one of the most remote places on Earth. The reason Mount Siple has never been summited—or even attempted—is that even Antarctic explorers and researchers rarely venture to its isolated corner of the frozen continent.

Climbers discovered the lure of Antarctica in the late 1960s, when a 10-person Antarctic Mountaineering Expedition first summited the Vinson Massif—the highest point on the continent at 16,860 feet—along with five more of Antarctica’s tallest peaks. None other than Sir Edmund Hillary traveled to Antarctica in 1968 and climbed the 11,000-foot Mount Herschel for his native New Zealand.

Mount Siple is located on Siple Island, which was first visited in 1984 by an icebreaker operated by the U.S. Geological Survey. There are no research outposts or habitable zones anywhere near the mountain, which geologists once thought was an active volcano.