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After mankind conquered both the Antarctic and Arctic in the 20thcentury, explorers turned their attention to the Tibetan Plateau. For millennia this land of majestic mountains was shrouded in mystery and beyond the reach of most aspiring mountaineers except for a select few.
Beginning from the 1980s, Tibet was no longer just gilded pinnacles, monasteries, historical anecdotes and myths to outside visitors. The towering mountains of Tibet are popular with mountaineers who wish to test their strength and spirit and transcend the limits imposed by nature on human endeavor. The Tibetan Plateau has an average altitude of over 4,000 meters with many world-famous mountain ranges renowned for their elevation, relative young age and spectacular scenery. In the Himalayan Range alone, there are over 50 peaks with elevations of more than 7,000 meters and 11 peaks 8,000 meters. Mountaineering or trekking along secluded mountain trails will create better than anything else will a heightened sense of self-awareness and transcendence. In the absolute wildness, you are one with nature, an exhilarating experience that you will never get anywhere else. There are many mountain peaks in Tibetan Plateau that remain untouched by man's footsteps. The 7,782 meters Namjagbarwa Peak was once the highest yet to be scaled by man. The face of the peak was so steep that efforts by a team of Chinese and Japanese mountaineers in 1991 ended in failure with a number of deaths. But this did not stop another team of Chinese and Japanese climbers who conquered this virgin peak in October 1992 with 11 of them reaching the top. The "Roof of the World" is world of mountains which pose ever changing challenges to
mountaineers who always want to scale new heights or climb mountains that have been climbed before by different routes. In recent years, the region has sponsored programs such as multi-national joint climbing, straight line approach, climbing without oxygen supplies, speed climb and solitary climb. Difficult approaches and harsh climate have been chosen to test the extreme limits of human endurance.
In order to accommodate the needs of mountaineers from around the world, a total of 44 mountain peaks have been open to international climbers since 1980. As people are eager to return to the embrace of nature, mountaineering, highland exploration and trekking in the Tibetan Plateau will become increasingly popular as a retreat into nature.
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