Tajikistan
The Fedchenko Glacier is the world’s longest and largest glacier outside of the Polar regions. Nearly fifty miles in length and covering an area of more than seven hundred square miles, it is well over half a mile thick in places. It winds down off of Mount Garmo towards the border with Kyrgyzstan.
The Pamir Mountains are located in an extremely remote corner of Central Asia, and little explored until fairly recently. The Fedchenko Glacier was not discovered until 1878, and it wasn’t thoroughly explored until a joint German-Russian expedition arrived in 1928.
The Fedchenko Glacier is immense by glacier standards, though there has been no major expansion since 1913. The glacier has been steadily retreating for the better part of a century, a process that is speeding up with the advent of significant global warming.
The Fedchenko Glacier, located on the fringe of the Himalayas near the extreme western corner of China and the northernmost point of Pakistan, is very inaccessible. Most people that get there are on well organized expeditions. Web: N/A.
Leave a Reply