Yalung Kang

Yalung Kang (Yalungkar or alternatively Kanchenjunga West) is a high minor summit of the Kangchenjunga massif found in the Himalayan range.

The peak lies 1,11 km west of Kanchenjunga's main summit in Taplejung, Nepal. The mountain range continues west to the final subsidiary peak of the massif, Kangbachen.

While Yalung Kang has long been recognized by geographers to be over 8,000 m, there has been hesitation to consider Yalung Kang the 15th eight-thousander. At 8,505 m high, if it was an independent peak, Yalung Kang would be the fifth highest mountain on earth. On altitude alone, its summit rises higher than Makalu, Cho Oyu, Annapurna I, Gasherbrum I and Nanga Parbat.

In 2014, Nepal officially recognized Yalung Kang as an independent peak and opened it for climbing.

Despite Nepal's recognition, the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) refuses to recognize Yalung Kang as an independent peak. Its lack of recognition as an independent peak has led Yalung Kang to be scarcely climbed, when compared to Kangchenjunga's central summit.

As of 2024, there have been only 22 recorded expeditions to Yalung Kang, compared to 201 on Kanchenjunga, according to the Himalayan Database. 12 of these have had successful summits, and five expeditions have experienced a fatality (22%).

Climbing history
The first successful summit of Yalung Kang was by the Kyoto University Yalung Khang Expedition in 1973. Two members of the 16 member expedition team reached the summit via the Southwest ridge, Yutaka Ageta and Takao Matsuda. Matusda was lost on the descent, all that could be found was part of a broken ice ax.

In 1980, Sergio Hugo Saldano Meneses from the University of Mexico Himalayas Expedition made the first successful summit of Yalung Kang without bottled oxygen, climbing via the SE face. He, along with Alfonso Medina and Chowang Renzi Sherpa, were lost on the descent.

In 1984, Laurence de la Ferrière made the first successful female ascent of Yalung Kang.

On April 22, 1985, Tomo Česen and Borut Bergant, members of a Slovenian climbing expedition claimed to have made the first successful summit of Yalung Kang via the North. The two climbed without supplemental oxygen, unfortunately Bergant was lost on the descent. This ascent has been disputed.

Yalung Kang was first successfully climbed in winter by the 1989-90 Korean Winter Yalung Kang Expedition. Climbing via the SE face, Kyo-Sup Jin, Ang Dawa Sherpa and Tchiring Thebe Sherpa all reached the summit on December 20, 1989, but were killed in the descent.

In 2014, Chhanda Gayen and her two sherpa guides, Tembu Sherpa and Dawa Wengu Sherpa, died in an avalanche while attempting the summit of Yalung Kang. Gayen had become the first Indian woman to climb Kangchenjunga two days before.