Major Peaks of India
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The peaks below are the ones exam-setters return to precisely because their elevations, ranks, and first-ascent facts are so easy to swap or subtly misremember. Every figure here has been checked against current reference sources rather than recalled from memory; where sources still disagree at the margins, that is flagged rather than smoothed over. Notice, too, how many of these first-ascent dates cluster in a narrow window between the 1900s and the early 1970s: this is not a coincidence of mountaineering fashion but a direct reflection of accessibility — the highest Indian peaks sit in the most remote, most politically sensitive corners of the country (the Karakoram border zone, the inner Nanda Devi sanctuary), so each was climbed only once surveying, permits, and logistics for that specific corner of the frontier caught up with the ambition to climb it, which is exactly why Saser Kangri (1973) and Mamostong Kangri (1984) were climbed so much later than the more accessible Trisul (1907) or Kamet (1931) despite being, if anything, geographically less extreme peaks.
| Peak | State/UT | Approx. Height | Range | Distinguishing Fact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kangchenjunga | Sikkim (on the India–Nepal border) | ~8,586 m | Himadri (Kangchenjunga Himal) | India's highest peak, world's 3rd highest; summited 25 May 1955 by a British team, who by agreement stopped just short of the true summit out of respect for local Sikkimese belief that the top is sacred and inviolate — a tradition later climbers have generally honoured |
| Nanda Devi | Uttarakhand | ~7,816 m | Garhwal Himalaya (Himadri) | India's 2nd-highest peak, and the highest peak located entirely within India (Kangchenjunga straddles the Nepal border); first climbed 1936 by a British-American team (H. W. Tilman and Noel Odell reached the summit) — at the time the highest summit yet reached by mountaineers anywhere; its core sanctuary has been closed to climbing since 1983 to protect the fragile high-altitude ecosystem |
| Kamet | Uttarakhand | ~7,756 m | Garhwal Himalaya (Himadri) | 2nd-highest peak in the Garhwal region after Nanda Devi; first climbed in 1931 by a British party (Frank Smythe, Eric Shipton, and colleagues) — at the time the first peak over 7,620 m (25,000 ft) ever climbed, a world altitude record it held until Nanda Devi's ascent five years later |
| Saltoro Kangri | Ladakh | ~7,742 m | Saltoro Range (Karakoram) | Highest peak of the Saltoro sub-range; sits on the Actual Ground Position Line dividing Indian- and Pakistani-held territory around the Siachen Glacier, making it geographically inseparable from the Siachen conflict; first climbed 1962 by a joint Japanese-Pakistani team |
| Saser Kangri | Ladakh | ~7,672 m | Saser Muztagh (easternmost Karakoram sub-range) | Highest peak of the Nubra Valley region; first climbed 1973 by an Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition, reflecting how much of this range's early mountaineering was tied to border-security surveying rather than purely sporting ascents |
| Mamostong Kangri | Ladakh | ~7,516 m | Rimo Muztagh (Karakoram) | A lesser-known but still very high Karakoram summit, first climbed only in 1984 by an Indo-Japanese team — illustrating how remote and late-explored the eastern Karakoram remained relative to the western Himalaya |
| Nanda Devi East | Uttarakhand | ~7,434 m | Garhwal Himalaya | A distinct satellite summit of the Nanda Devi massif, first climbed by a Polish team in 1939 — a good example of how a single "peak name" in casual usage can actually be twin summits with separate first-ascent histories |
| Rimo I | Ladakh | ~7,385 m | Rimo Muztagh (Karakoram, near the Siachen Glacier's source) | Marks the point where the Siachen Glacier's several tributary ice streams converge; the wider Rimo massif is one of the least-visited high-mountain zones in India owing to its proximity to the militarised Siachen sector |
| Trisul | Uttarakhand | ~7,120 m | Garhwal Himalaya (near Nanda Devi) | Historically significant as the first peak above 7,000 m ever climbed by any expedition, summited in 1907 by a British party led by Tom Longstaff — nearly a quarter-century before Kamet's 1931 record at the 7,620 m mark, making Trisul the earlier of the two "world altitude record" peaks in this book |
| Mana Peak | Uttarakhand | ~7,272 m | Garhwal Himalaya (beside Mana Pass) | Named for the same Mana village and pass covered in the Uttarakhand passes section, illustrating how peak names and pass names in this belt often share a single local place-name root |
| Nun Kun | Ladakh (Suru Valley, Zanskar) | Nun ~7,135 m, Kun ~7,077 m | Zaskar Range | A twin-summit massif — Nun and Kun are the two highest points of the Zaskar Range and among the very few 7,000-plus metre peaks lying south of the Indus, making Nun Kun the natural "highest of the Zaskar Range" answer, parallel to Guru Shikhar for the Aravallis and Anamudi for the Western Ghats |
| Kedarnath Peak / Kedar Dome | Uttarakhand | ~6,940 m (Kedarnath Peak) | Garhwal Himalaya | Overlooks the Kedarnath temple and the Chorabari/Gandhi Sarovar area; relevant to this book chiefly through the catastrophic 2013 Kedarnath flood disaster, in which a moraine-dammed glacial lake above the temple town breached after extreme rainfall (see the strategic/current-affairs section) |
Exam caution on elevation figures: Himalayan elevations you will see cited across different sources can vary by a few metres to a few dozen metres, because triangulation surveys, satellite remeasurement, and rounding conventions differ — Kangchenjunga, for instance, is cited anywhere from about 8,585 m to 8,586 m depending on source vintage. Treat the figures in this book as your revision anchor, phrase any recall as "approximately," and never bet a close elevation-ordering question on the last one or two metres of precision. This same caution applies with even more force to Everest, whose officially recognised elevation was itself revised in 2020 (a joint Nepal-China resurvey settling on 8,848.86 m, replacing the long-standing 8,848 m figure) — a useful reminder that even the world's most famous elevation figure is not permanently fixed, let alone the less rigorously resurveyed peaks of this book's own list.
A closer look at the peaks that carry the richest exam trivia. Kangchenjunga is worth dwelling on beyond its raw elevation: its name is generally translated as "the five treasures of snow," referring to its five distinct summits, each traditionally associated with a store of one of five categories of treasure (gold, silver, gems, grain, and holy scripture) in local Sikkimese and Nepali belief. This religious significance is precisely why the 1955 first-ascent team stopped a symbolic few feet short of the true summit — a gesture of restraint that later Indian and international expeditions climbing the peak have generally continued to honour, making Kangchenjunga one of very few 8,000-metre peaks whose true summit point is by informal convention left untouched. The mountain also anchors Khangchendzonga National Park, India's first Mixed UNESCO World Heritage Site (natural and cultural, inscribed 2016), tying this book directly back to the wildlife and protected-areas topics covered elsewhere in this series.
Nanda Devi's closure to mountaineering after 1983 is itself a frequently tested current-affairs-adjacent fact: expeditions through the 1960s to early 1980s caused measurable ecological damage to the fragile high-altitude sanctuary ringing the peak (compounded by a controversial, still not fully declassified 1965 American-Indian intelligence operation that attempted to plant a plutonium-powered listening device on a neighbouring peak to monitor Chinese nuclear tests, and which was reportedly lost in an avalanche, becoming a recurring source of speculation about radioactive contamination of the upper Rishi Ganga catchment). The mountain and its surrounding sanctuary were declared a Biosphere Reserve and a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site (1988), then expanded to include the neighbouring Valley of Flowers as a joint UNESCO property.
Trisul's 1907 ascent deserves separate emphasis because it is so easy to conflate with Kamet's later and more famous 1931 record: Trisul was the record for the first 7,000-metre peak ever climbed by anyone, anywhere in the world (not just in India), while Kamet's 1931 record was specifically the first 7,620 m/25,000-foot threshold crossed. Holding both records straight — 7,000 m first (Trisul, 1907) versus 25,000 ft/7,620 m first (Kamet, 1931) — is a clean way to avoid a very commonly set trap.
Two further Garhwal satellites worth recognising by name, even without their own table row: Changabang and Dunagiri. Both sit within or immediately beside the Nanda Devi Sanctuary rim, and both are prized in mountaineering literature for technical difficulty rather than sheer height — Changabang in particular, a striking near-vertical granite spire well under 7,000 m, is frequently cited by climbers as one of the most technically demanding faces in the entire Himalaya despite its comparatively modest altitude, a good reminder that "hardest to climb" and "highest" are two entirely different rankings in this subject, just as they are in the pass terminology distinction between "highest" and "most strategically important."
On "India's highest peak" — the recurring trap. K2 (Mount Godwin-Austen), at roughly 8,611 m, is higher than Kangchenjunga and lies within the Karakoram range, but it sits in Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan — territory India claims as part of Jammu & Kashmir but does not administer. Exam-setters exploit exactly this gap: "highest peak in India" (Kangchenjunga, the highest peak actually under Indian administration) is a different question from "highest peak in the undivided Kashmir region" or "highest peak India claims," where K2 would be the answer. Always read whether the question says "administered by" or merely "claimed by."
Memory hook — the elevation ladder for these ten peaks: "Kangchenjunga tops the ladder at 8,586, Nanda Devi steps down to 7,816, Kamet just below at 7,756, Saltoro-Saser-Rimo-Mamostong cluster in the 7,700s–7,300s, then Nanda-East, Mana Peak and Nun-Kun in the 7,400s–7,000s, with Trisul and Kedarnath bringing up the rear around 7,100 and 6,900." Say it once as a chant, high to low, and the ranking sticks better than the raw numbers alone.
Practice Recall: Cover the table and answer: which peak is India's highest, which is the highest located entirely within India, which peak was the first 7,000 m peak ever climbed anywhere, and which held the record for first 7,620 m (25,000 ft) peak climbed?
Answer: Kangchenjunga is India's highest (world's 3rd highest, straddles the Nepal border). Nanda Devi is the highest entirely within India. Trisul (1907) was the first 7,000 m peak ever climbed. Kamet (1931) was the first 7,620 m/25,000 ft peak climbed.