{{About|the 6740m Kawagarbo on the east side of Nu River|the 5128m Kawagarbo on the west side of Nu River|Gawagarpu}} {{short description|Highest mountain in Yunnan, China}} {{Infobox mountain | name = Kawagarbo | image = 卡瓦格博峰 - 2025-05-10 IMG 3511.jpg | image_caption = East Face of Kawagarbo | elevation_m = 6740.1 | elevation_ref = <ref name="jan_2003">Tamotsu Nakamura. 2003. East of the Himalayas - to the Alps of Tibet. Japanese Alpine News, Volume 4, May 2003 Special Submission.</ref><ref name="peaklist">{{cite web|url=http://www.peaklist.org/WWlists/ultras/china1.html|title=Tibetan ultra-prominent peaks|publisher=Jonathan de Ferranti, Eberhard Jurgalski and Aaron Maizlish|accessdate=2009-03-27}}</ref> | prominence_m = 2232 | prominence_ref = <ref name="peaklist"/> | listing = Ultra | map = China Yunnan | map_caption = Location in Yunnan | map_size = 284 | label_position = top | location = Tibet/Yunnan, China | range = Meili Xueshan, Hengduan Mountains | coordinates = {{coord|28|26|18|N|98|41|00|E|type:mountain_scale:100000|format=dms|display=inline,title}} | coordinates_ref = <ref name="peaklist"/> | first_ascent = unclimbed (as of 2003)<ref name="jan_2003"/> | easiest_route = }} right|thumb|296px|The Meili Xueshan range from Fei Lai Si '''Kawa Garbo''' or '''Khawa Karpo''' ({{Bo|t=ཁ་བ་དཀར་པོ།|z=Kawagarbo}}; also transcribed as '''Kawadgarbo''', '''Khawakarpo''', '''Moirig Kawagarbo''', '''Kawa Karpo''' or '''Kha-Kar-Po'''), as it is known by local residents and pilgrims, or '''Kawagebo Peak''' ({{zh|卡瓦格博}}), is the highest mountain in the Chinese province of Yunnan.<ref name="peaklist"/> It is located on the border between Dêqên County, Yunnan, and the counties of Zogang and Zayü of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It rises about {{convert|20|km|mi|0}} west of Shengping (升平镇), the seat of Dêqên County, which lies on China National Highway 214. What is now Dêqên County has been part of Yunnan since the 1720s, when the current border with Tibet was established by the early Qing Dynasty. Kawagarbo is one of the most sacred peaks in the Tibetan world<ref name = "Dowman">Keith Dowman. 1997. The Sacred Life of Tibet. San Francisco, California, USA: Thorsons.</ref> and is often referred to as '''Nyainqênkawagarbo''' to show its sacredness and avoid ambiguousness with the other Kawagarbo in the Anung-Derung-speaking Gongshan County.
==Geography== Kawa Karpo is the high point in a range of high peaks that are generally referred to by Tibetans also as Kawa Karpo. A mapping error by the Chinese army during the 1950s transcribed the name for a lower range of mountains to the north on a much larger area that also included Kawa Karpo. The name of this lower range in Tibetan is Menri (Wylie system; Sman-ri in the Wade–Giles system; name means Mountains of Medicinal Herbs), but is most widely known by its Chinese transliteration, Meili Xue Shan (梅里雪山 or Meili Snow Mountain). This is the name most widely applied to the range by Chinese and Western sources.<ref name = "Salick_2012">Jan Salick and Robert Moseley. 2012. Kawa Karpo: Conservation in a Tibetan Landscape. St. Louis, Missouri, USA: Missouri Botanical Garden Press</ref> The Meili range is a small massif of the much more extensive Hengduan Shan, the major north-south trending complex of mountains lying along the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in eastern Tibet, northwestern Yunnan, western Sichuan, and far northern Myanmar. The Kawa Karpo forms part of the divide between the Salween (Nujiang) and Mekong (Lancangjiang) rivers.
The Kawa Karpo has over 20 peaks with permanent snow cover, including six peaks over {{convert|6000|m|ft|-2|abbr=on}}. Topographic extremes are immense, with vertical relief ranging from less than 2,000 m along the Mekong River on the east to 6,740 m on the summit of Kawa Karpo within 10 km horizontal distance. Even greater topographic relief is found on the west or Salween River side of the range. Coincident with this extreme topographic gradient is a similarly steep environmental gradient. Compressed within this short distance are subtropical scrub ecosystems along the arid canyon bottoms, rising through dry oak forests, humid mixed deciduous-coniferous forests, cold temperate coniferous forests, alpine meadows and scree above treeline, to permanent snow on the high peaks. The Mingyong Glacier, descending from the summit of Kawa Karpo, terminates at a low elevation just before the subtropical life zone.<ref name = "Salick_2012"/> The range is highly affected by the monsoon, leading to especially unstable snow conditions, which have affected climbing attempts (see below).<ref name="jan_2003"/>
==Sacred mountain worship== Kawa Karpo is one of the most sacred mountains for Tibetan Buddhism as the spiritual home of a warrior god of the same name.<ref name = "Dowman"/><ref>Fang Zhengdong, Zhan Lu, He Jianhua, and Gerong Lamu. 1997. Glorification of Kawa KarpoSnow Mountain. Kunming, Yunnan, China: Yunnan Art Publishing Co.[in Chinese]</ref><ref name = "renqin">Renqin Duoji and Qi Jixian. 1999. KKawa Karpo: A Holy Land of Snow Mountains. Kunming, Yunnan, China: Yunnan People's Press. [in Chinese]</ref> It is visited by 20,000 pilgrims each year from throughout the Tibetan world;<ref name="iht">{{cite web|url=<!-- http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/27/travel/tryun.php -->https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/travel/27iht-tryun.html|title=Walking the Sacred Steps of Kawa Karpoauthor=Connie Rogers|publisher=International Herald Tribune|date=2005-04-28|accessdate=2009-03-27}}</ref> many pilgrims circumambulate the peak, an arduous {{convert|240|km|mi|-1|abbr=on}} trek.<ref name = "renqin"/> Although it is important throughout Tibetan Buddhism, it is the local Tibetans that are the day-to-day guardians and stewards of Kawa Karpo, both the deity and the mountain.<ref name = "Salick_2012"/>
The ancestral religion of the Kawa Karpo area, as in much of Tibet, was Bön, a shamanistic tradition based on the concept of a world pervaded by good and evil spirits. Bön encompassed numerous deities and spirits which are still recognized today, and are often connected with specific geographical localities and natural features; the major mountain peaks in the Hengduan Mountains are thus all identified with specific deities. Kawa Karpo is one of these. Since its introduction, Tibetan Buddhism has been the dominant religion of the Kawa Karpo area, with followers of Gelugpa doctrine being the most common.<ref name = "Salick_2012"/><ref name="npr">{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5163809|title=The Mountain Home of a Warrior God|author=Bill McQuay|publisher=National Public Radio|date=2006-01-23|accessdate=2009-03-27}}</ref>
Tibetans believe that their warrior god would leave them if a human should ever set foot on the peak of Kawa Karpo, thereby robbing the peak of its sanctity and leading to disasters in the wake of the loss of the god's protection. Tibetans have also established a centuries-old sacred geography around the peak, maintained by religious leaders from local monasteries in negotiation with local villages. This sacred natural site preserves the natural resources and ecological health of the range.<ref>Anderson, D.M., Salick, J., Moseley, R.K., and Ou X.K. 2005. Conserving the sacred medicine mountains: A vegetation analysis of Tibetan sacred sites in northwest Yunnan. Biodiversity and Conservation 14(13): 3065-3091</ref>
==Climbing history== The first attempt on Kawa Karpo was made in 1987 by a party from the Joetsu Alpine Club of Japan.
In the winter of 1990–91 a Japanese group from the Academic Alpine Club of Kyoto University attempted the peak in conjunction with a Chinese group. Their activity caused heavy protests from the local Tibetan community due to the mountain's cultural and religious significance. On 3 January 1991, a nighttime avalanche killed all seventeen members of the expedition in one of the deadliest mountaineering accidents in history. The same Japanese club from Kyoto returned in 1996 and made another unsuccessful attempt.<ref name="jan_2003"/><ref>Naoyuki Kobayashi. 2007. The Mingyong Glacier of the Meili Sbow Mountains: Looking for the remains of 17 mounatineers. Japanese Alpine News, Volume 8, pages 125-129, May 2007.</ref>
American expeditions, led by Nicholas Clinch, visited the range in 1988, 1989, 1992, and 1993, attempting other major peaks, but were unsuccessful.<ref name="jan_2003"/>
In 2001, local Chinese government passed laws banning all future climbing attempts on cultural and religious grounds. {{As of|2010}}, none of the significant peaks of the range have been successfully climbed.<ref name="jan_2003"/>
==Retreat of Mingyong Glacier==
Mingyong Glacier descends steeply from the east face of Kawagarbo into the Mekong River valley on the Yunnan side of the massif. Because it descends from near the summit of Kawagarbo, it is also considered sacred by Tibetan Buddhists and two temples are located along its lower edge. From those temples, the rapid retreat of Mingyong Glacier is obvious, especially to local people who observe it year in and year out. A monk from Taizi Temple reflected on this rapid retreat of Mingyong Glacier, concerned that it might be punishment from Kawagarpo for the lack of devotion by him and his fellow Buddhists.<ref name = "Shangri-La_book">Robert K. Moseley. 2011. Revisiting Shangri-La: Photographing a Century of Environmental and Cultural Change in the Mountains of Southwest China. Beijing: China Intercontinental Press</ref>
The retreat of Mingyong Glacier, linked to a warming climate in the Deqin area,<ref name = "Baker article">B.B. Baker and R.K. Moseley. 2007. Advancing treeline and retreating glaciers: Implications for conservation in Yunnan, China. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 39(2): 200-209</ref> has received considerable attention for its implications for biodiversity conservation,<ref>R.K. Moseley. 2006. Historical landscape change in northwestern Yunnan, China: Using repeat photography to assess the perceptions and realities of biodiversity loss. Mountain Research and Development 26(3): 214-219</ref> retrieval of climber's bodies killed in the 1991 avalanche,<ref>Naoyuki Kobayashi. 2007. The Mingyong Glacier of the Meili Snow Mountains in China: Looking for the remains of 17 mountaineers. Japanese Alpine News Volume 8, May 2007</ref> impacts on Mingyong village water supply,<ref>Brooks Larmer and Jonas Bendiksen. 2010. The big melt: Glaciers that feed great Asian rivers are shrinking. National Geographic 217(4): 60-95, April 2010</ref><ref>Barbara Demick. 2009. Glaciers in southern China receding rapidly, scientists say. Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2009</ref> and in the broader context of climate change impacts to biological and social systems in northwest Yunnan and beyond.<ref name = "Shangri-La_book"/><ref>Orville Schell. 2010. China's magic melting mountain. Condé Naste Traveler, February 2010</ref>
==See also== * Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, includes Kawagarbo/Meili, as well as a number of other iconic mountain landscapes in northwestern Yunnan.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1083|title = Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas}}</ref> * List of ultras of Tibet, East Asia and neighbouring areas
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Yunnan}} {{Sacred Mountains of China}} Category:Highest points of Chinese provinces Category:Mountains of Yunnan Category:Mountains of Tibet Category:Buddhist holy places in Tibet Category:Tourist attractions in Yunnan Category:Six-thousanders of the Transhimalayas Category:Geography of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Category:Sacred mountains of China Category:Ultra-prominent peaks of Asia