Mountains
We can just see the northern fringe of the Great Himalaya Mountains along the lower left edge of our image. The Himalayas (the Abode of Snow) are the world's highest mountain range, containing all top ten of the world's highest peaks. The Himalayas are a non-continuous range; they are segmented at various places into subranges. In the places where the Himalayas consist of separate clusters of mountains, which grouped together by regions are called Himals, such as the Gharwal Himal.
The Zaskar Range is the part of the Himalayas just up
off the Sutlej Valley floor along the southwestern edge
of our image and contains the most heavily traveled
mountain passes between India and Tibet, Tinkar Pass
and Shipu La.
The mountains to the north of the lakes are the Gangdise Shan, or Kailash Range. They contain a mountain that is revered as the most holy mountain in the world by Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Bon-po adherents: Mount Kailash, which at the
modest altitude of 6742 m. (22,114 ft.) has been a
pilgrimage destination for well over 2000 years.
This whole region has been named the Trans-Himalaya. The mountains of the Trans-Himalaya are in between the real giants of the Himalaya: Everest at 8848 m. (29,028 ft.), the tallest mountain in the world, to the southeast in Nepal and K-2 at 8611 m. (28,250 ft.), the second tallest mountain, to the northwest in Pakistan. The highest peak in the image area, Gurla Mandhata, is 7728 m. (25,355 ft.) tall.
This area has also been called the Tethys Himalaya by geologists and the reason for that name is told by the story of plate tectonics. The land that makes up these mountains was once the bottom and shores of the ancient Tethys Sea. The ongoing, millions of years long collision of the Indian and Eurasian continental plates has created these mountains and is still pushing them higher.
