Amne Machin
Encyclopedia
Amne Machin is the highest peak of a mountain range named Amne Machin (Tibtean: A'nyêmaqên), or, in Chinese,
Animaqing Shan in the province of Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...

 in west-central China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

.

Geography

The entire Amne Machin range is an eastern extension of the Kunlun Mountains
Kunlun Mountains
The Kunlun Mountains are one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending more than 3,000 km. In the broadest sense, it forms the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau south of the Tarim Basin and the Gansu Corridor and continues east south of the Wei River to end at the North China Plain.The...

, a major mountain system of Asia. The Amne Machin range runs in the general northwest- to-southeast direction in eastern Qinghai (Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture of Qinghai province in China. The prefecture has an area of 76,312 km² and its capital is Maqên County.-Geography:...

 and the adjacent areas of the Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture of northeastern Qinghai Province in Western China. The prefecture has an area of and its seat is located in Gonghe County...

) and the southwestern corner of Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...

's Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in southern Gansu Province, China. It includes Xiahe and the Labrang Monastery, Luqu, Maqu, and other mostly Tibetan towns and villages...

.

The existence of the ridge results in one of the great bends of the Yellow River
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...

. The river first flows for several hundreds of kilometers toward the east and southeast, along the south-western side of the Amne Machin Range. In so doing it crosses the entire length of Golog Prefecture, and reaches the borders of Gansu and Sichuan. Then the river turns almost 180 degrees to the left, passing to the northeastern side of the Amne Machin, and flows toward the northwest for 200-300 km through several prefectures of the northeastern Qinghai.

The Amne Machin Peak (the highest point of the range) is located in Maqên County
Maqên County
Maqên County is a county of Qinghai Province, China. It is under the administration of Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture....

 of Golog Prefecture. Its elevation is estimated to 6282 metres (20,610 ft). It is ranked number 23 in height among the mountain peaks of China.

A part of the range around its highest peak has been declared a section of the Sanjiangyuan ("Sources of Three Rivers") National Nature Reserve
Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve
The Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve The Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve The Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve (SNNR; ; Tibetan: (གཙང་གསུམ་འབུང་ཁུངས་རང་བྱུང་སྲུང་སྐྱོབ་ཁུལ།) also referred to as the Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve, or the Three Rivers Nature Reserve, is the area of Qinghai...

.

History

The massif had long been considered a sacred mountain and a place of pilgrimage, when before the Communist 'liberation' up to 10,000 Golog Tibetans
Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture of Qinghai province in China. The prefecture has an area of 76,312 km² and its capital is Maqên County.-Geography:...

 would make the 120-mile circumambulation
Circumambulation
Circumambulation is the act of moving around a sacred object.Circumambulation of temples or deity images is an integral part of Hindu ritual. It is also practised in Buddhism. In Islam, circumambulation is performed around the Kaaba in Mecca, in a counter-clockwise direction...

 of the mountain each year. The first European to describe the mountain was the British explorer Brigadier-General George Pereira
George Pereira
Brigadier-General George Edward Pereira, CB, CMG, DSO was a British explorer in Central Asia, Tibet and Western China; a soldier, writer and diplomatist.-Early life and family:...

 on his expedition on foot from Peking to Lhasa of 1921-2, sometimes reckoned one of the great geographical discoveries of the twentieth century. Pereira, who saw Amne Machin from about 70 miles away, thought its "height must be at least 25,000 feet, and might be anything; it dwarfed all other mountains near it."

However, the massif remained unclimbed until 1949. The Amne Machin mountains had been overflown by a few American pilots who overestimated the elevation to 30,000 feet. A 1930 article of the National Geographic estimated the peak elevation to 28,000 feet according to the report of Joseph Rock
Joseph Rock
Joseph Francis Charles Rock was an Austrian-American explorer, geographer, linguist and botanist.-Life:He was born in Vienna, Austria, but emigrated to the United States in 1905 and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1907, where he eventually became an authority on the flora there...

, an American botanist and explorer. For a while, the mountains were considered as a possible place for a peak higher than Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...

. In 1949, a Chinese expedition climbed the mountain, but it was demonstrated in 1980 that this expedition did not climb the right peak.

The Amne Machin peak was first climbed in 1981 by a U.S. expedition (the first foreign expedition authorized by the Chinese government). Galen Rowell
Galen Rowell
Galen Avery Rowell was a noted wilderness photographer and climber. Born in Oakland, California, he became a full-time photographer in 1972.-Early life and education:...

, Harold Knutsen and Kim Scmitz reached the summit successfully and reported its true elevation to be 20,610 feet.

External links


Leonard Clark "The Marching Wind", New York Funk and Wagnalls 1954
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