Liushi Shan

Liushi Shan | Kunlun Goddess

A group of wild Tibetan antelopes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with the Kunlun Snow Mountain Range as the background. Shot at sunset in Wild Yak Valley, a no man’s land, in Qinghai Province, China. | Lu Yang

Rising to 7,167 meters (23,513 feet) in one of the most isolated corners of western China, Liushi Shan is generally recognized as the highest mountain in the Kunlun Mountains. Also known as Kunlun Goddess Peak, Liushi Feng, and Aksai Chin I, the heavily glaciated summit stands on the boundary between the Tibet and Xinjiang autonomous regions.

Despite being one of the relatively small number of mountains on Earth exceeding 7,000 meters, Liushi Shan remains remarkably obscure. Its location far from population centers, exceptionally high surrounding plateau, difficult access, and limited climbing history have kept it outside the international spotlight enjoyed by similarly high peaks in the Himalaya and Karakoram.

⚡ Fast Facts

Fact	Details
Country	China
Regions	Tibet / Xinjiang
Mountain Range	Kunlun Mountains
Elevation	7,167 meters / 23,513 feet
Prominence	1,946 meters / 6,385 feet
Isolation	288.37 kilometers / 179.18 miles
Nearest Higher Neighbor (NHN)	Saser Kangri II East
Coordinates	35.31546° N, 80.91479° E
Highest Point Of	Kunlun Mountains
Classification	Ultra-prominent peak
First Ascent	August 16, 1986
First Ascent Team	Japanese expedition
Alternate Names	Kunlun Goddess, Liushi Feng, Aksai Chin I, Kunlun I

Liushi Shan’s Nearest Higher Neighbor is Saser Kangri II East in the eastern Karakoram. Its nearest higher terrain lies roughly 288 kilometers away, giving Liushi Shan exceptional topographic isolation. Peakbagger lists a prominence of 1,946 meters and identifies Liushi Shan as the highest point of the Kunlun Mountains.

🏔️ Highest Mountain in the Kunlun Mountains

Liushi Shan occupies a special place in Asian geography because it is generally regarded as the highest summit of the Kunlun Mountains.

The Kunlun Mountains form one of Asia’s longest mountain systems, stretching for more than 3,000 kilometers along much of the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau.

Farther east are other enormous Kunlun summits, including Ulugh Muztagh at 6,973 meters and Bukadaban Feng at 6,860 meters.

Liushi Shan surpasses them all at 7,167 meters.

📍 Where Is Liushi Shan?

Liushi Shan lies in remote western China near the boundary between Xinjiang and the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The mountain rises within the high, arid landscape associated with Aksai Chin and the western Kunlun. Much of the surrounding terrain already stands between approximately 5,000 and 6,000 meters above sea level.

This extremely high base elevation helps explain one unusual feature of Liushi Shan: despite exceeding 7,000 meters, the mountain does not always appear as dramatically dominant as its elevation might suggest.

Neighboring summits frequently exceed 6,500 meters, and high glaciated valleys separate many of the peaks.

The landscape therefore resembles an enormous frozen plateau crowned by additional mountains rather than a single isolated pyramid rising from lowlands.

🧊 A Heavily Glaciated Mountain

Liushi Shan is surrounded by extensive glaciers.

The first-ascent expedition encountered major glacier systems while approaching the mountain, including the Doctor Glacier and Zhongfeng Glacier.

These glaciers proved to be among the expedition’s largest logistical obstacles because climbers had to transport equipment across crevassed ice before even reaching the higher portions of the route.

Scientific work examining the greater Hotan River headwaters has estimated thousands of square kilometers of glacier cover across this part of the northwestern Tibetan Plateau. Many of these glaciers occur at extremely high elevations and are predominantly cold-based.

🌏 One of Earth’s 7,000-Meter Mountains

A summit elevation of 7,167 meters places Liushi Shan among an elite group of mountains exceeding 7,000 meters.

Most of the world’s 7,000-meter peaks are concentrated within the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamirs, Hindu Kush, and Tian Shan.

Liushi Shan is unusual because it represents the high point of the enormous but less internationally familiar Kunlun system.

Its height exceeds:

Ulugh Muztagh — 6,973 m
Chung Muztagh — approximately 6,962 m
Bukadaban Feng — 6,860 m
Yuzhu Peak — 6,178 m

For more of the range’s major summits, see the Highest Peaks of the Kunlun Mountains.

📐 Exceptional Topographic Prominence

Liushi Shan has approximately 1,946 meters of topographic prominence.

That comfortably exceeds the 1,500-meter threshold required for classification as an ultra-prominent peak, or “Ultra.”

Prominence measures how independently a mountain rises relative to surrounding terrain rather than simply measuring elevation above sea level.

This distinction is important on the Tibetan Plateau, where many peaks rise from terrain that is already extremely high.

Despite the lofty plateau surrounding it, Liushi Shan remains nearly two vertical kilometers above its key saddle.

🧭 Almost 290 Kilometers From Higher Terrain

Liushi Shan’s isolation is perhaps even more impressive than its prominence.

Peakbagger calculates its true isolation at approximately 288.37 kilometers (179.18 miles).

The nearest higher terrain lies in the direction of the eastern Karakoram, near Saser Kangri II East.

Saser Kangri II East rises to approximately 7,518 meters and belongs to the Saser Kangri massif.

This means Liushi Shan dominates an enormous region of western China before any higher ground is encountered.

👑 Why Is It Called Kunlun Goddess Peak?

One of Liushi Shan’s best-known alternate names is Kunlun Goddess Peak.

The Chinese name 昆仑女神峰 is commonly translated this way and has become widely used in climbing and geographical references.

The name is especially appropriate given the Kunlun Mountains’ extraordinary place in Chinese mythology.

The legendary Kunlun was described in ancient Chinese traditions as a sacred mountain realm associated with deities, immortality, and the divine.

Modern geography eventually applied the Kunlun name to the immense mountain system stretching across western China.

Liushi Shan’s position as the range’s highest summit makes the title Kunlun Goddess particularly memorable.

🗺️ Aksai Chin I

Older mountaineering and geographical sources sometimes refer to Liushi Shan as Aksai Chin I or simply P 7167.

The name P 7167 reflects a period when many remote Asian peaks were identified principally by their surveyed elevation rather than a widely standardized mountain name.

The American Alpine Journal account of the first ascent, published in 1987, called the mountain P 7167, Kunlun Mountains.

Other sources have used Kunlun I, Liushi Feng, and Kunlun Goddess.

Different naming systems are common across the remote mountains of Central Asia, where Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Russian, Japanese, and Western mapping traditions have often produced different spellings or names for the same summit.

🧗 The First Ascent

Liushi Shan remained unclimbed until 1986, remarkably late for a mountain exceeding 7,000 meters.

A Japanese expedition from the Tokyo University of Agriculture Alpine Club approached the mountain during the summer of that year.

The team traveled from Ürümqi through Kashgar before continuing into the western Kunlun.

Base Camp was established on July 20 at approximately 5,270 meters, around 60 kilometers east of Tianshuihai.

Even from Base Camp, the summit remained approximately 25 kilometers away.

The expedition then began the difficult process of transporting supplies through the glaciers toward the mountain.

🏕️ Establishing the High Camps

The Japanese expedition gradually moved camps higher during August.

According to the expedition report:

Camp I: 5,515 meters
Camp II: 6,160 meters
Camp III: 6,670 meters

Camp III was constructed as a snow cave, providing protection at an elevation higher than the summits of nearly every mountain in North America.

The team climbed the glacier on Liushi Shan’s southern side and eventually reached the mountain’s east ridge.

From there, the route followed the east ridge toward its junction with the south ridge.

Climbers spent two days fixing rope and preparing the upper route before launching their summit attempt.

🏆 Summit Day — August 16, 1986

At 9:00 a.m. on August 16, 1986, five Japanese climbers left Camp III for the summit.

They were:

Shinji Kobayashi
Shuya Nakashima
Tetsuya Baba
Yukimasa Numano
Masanori Sato

The five successfully reached Liushi Shan’s 7,167-meter summit, completing the mountain’s first recorded ascent.

A second group reached the summit the following day.

That team consisted of Kunio Obata, Takeshi Murata, Yukiko Kukuzawa, Mitsuhiro Sugawara, Shigeru Masuyama, and expedition leader Keijiro Hayasaka.

🧗 The First-Ascent Route

The successful Japanese route approached from the south.

After crossing the lower glaciers, the climbers ascended the glacier on the mountain’s southern side until they gained the east ridge.

They then followed the ridge upward toward its meeting point with the south ridge before continuing to the summit.

Although detailed modern grading of the route is difficult to find, the expedition’s use of fixed ropes, multiple high camps, glacier crossings, and a snow cave at 6,670 meters makes clear that this was a serious high-altitude expedition.

The challenges were compounded by the mountain’s isolation and the difficulty of moving supplies across the glaciers.

🏔️ Liushi Shan II

Liushi Shan is part of a substantial high mountain massif rather than an isolated summit.

Immediately north of the main peak rises Liushi Shan II, reaching approximately 6,930 to 6,936 meters depending on the mapping source.

Its summit lies only around 1.3 kilometers from Liushi Shan.

Because the connecting saddle is extremely high, Liushi Shan II has relatively little independent prominence despite its enormous elevation.

A climber standing on Liushi Shan II would nevertheless be higher than almost every independent mountain outside the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamirs, and neighboring high ranges.

🏔️ Liushi Shan III

Farther east lies Liushi Shan III, another major subsidiary summit.

Peakbagger lists Liushi Shan III at approximately 6,875 meters (22,556 feet).

It is connected to Liushi Shan II by a high ridge and has only about 175 meters of prominence.

Together, Liushi Shan, Liushi Shan II, and Liushi Shan III create an enormous multi-summit mountain complex surrounded by glaciers and other peaks exceeding 6,000 meters.

🗻 Nearby Chongshe Shan

East of the Liushi Shan massif rises Chongshe Shan, another major summit of the western Kunlun.

It reaches approximately 6,903 meters, placing it among the highest mountains in the entire range.

Other subsidiary summits surround Chongshe Shan, creating an almost continuous landscape of extraordinarily high terrain.

This concentration of 6,000-meter peaks is one reason Liushi Shan’s local relief can appear deceptively modest despite its status as a 7,000-meter mountain.

❄️ A High, Cold Desert

Liushi Shan occupies a landscape that combines extreme elevation, severe cold, and aridity.

The western Tibetan Plateau receives relatively little precipitation compared with the wetter Himalayan slopes farther south.

Much of what does fall at high elevations arrives as snow.

Temperatures remain low enough to preserve extensive glaciers despite the dry climate, while strong winds can transport and redistribute snow across exposed ridges.

Climbers therefore face an unusual combination of intense sunlight, low humidity, freezing temperatures, powerful winds, glacier hazards, and extremely thin air.

🫁 Life Above 7,000 Meters

The summit of Liushi Shan lies within an altitude zone sometimes described by mountaineers as approaching the death zone.

Although the term is most often associated with elevations above 8,000 meters, the physiological effects of altitude are already severe at 7,167 meters.

Available oxygen is dramatically reduced compared with sea level.

Climbers may experience:

Extreme fatigue
Headaches
Nausea
Impaired judgment
Loss of coordination
Difficulty sleeping
Reduced appetite
Increased risk of serious altitude illness

Acclimatization is therefore fundamental to any expedition.

The first-ascent team spent weeks gradually establishing higher camps before attempting the summit.

🌍 Geology of the Western Kunlun

Liushi Shan belongs to the immense geological system surrounding the Tibetan Plateau.

The modern landscape ultimately reflects the long-term convergence of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which has compressed, faulted, uplifted, and deformed a huge portion of Central Asia.

The Kunlun Mountains form an important northern boundary zone of the plateau.

Unlike a single volcanic chain, the Kunlun consists of numerous crustal blocks, faults, sedimentary sequences, metamorphic rocks, and intrusive formations assembled during a complicated geological history.

Continuing tectonic deformation and erosion have helped create the high ranges and basins seen today.

🧊 Glaciers and the Tarim Basin

Liushi Shan also occupies an important hydrological position.

Glaciers of the western Kunlun contribute meltwater to drainage systems associated with the edges of the Tibetan Plateau and the Tarim Basin.

North of the mountain, drainage ultimately connects toward the Yurungkash system, which contributes to the Hotan River.

Water supplied by snow and glaciers in the Kunlun is enormously important because it reaches some of the driest landscapes in Asia.

The contrast is dramatic: ice accumulated on mountains more than 7,000 meters high can eventually support rivers flowing toward desert basins.

🏜️ Mountains Above the Taklamakan Region

North of the Kunlun lies the vast Tarim Basin and the Taklamakan Desert.

This geographical contrast is one of the defining characteristics of western China.

The Kunlun rises along the southern edge of one of Earth’s largest sandy deserts while forming the northern wall of the equally enormous Tibetan Plateau.

Liushi Shan stands near the western part of this boundary system.

Its glaciers, snowfields, and frozen ridges therefore rise only a few hundred kilometers from landscapes dominated by dunes and extreme aridity.

🗺️ An Exceptionally Remote Mountain

Liushi Shan’s isolation is not merely topographic.

The mountain lies far from major population centers and conventional tourism infrastructure.

The 1986 first-ascent expedition had to travel through Ürümqi and Kashgar before making its way deep into the western Kunlun. Even after Base Camp was established, climbers remained about 25 kilometers from the mountain’s summit and still had substantial glacier crossings ahead.

There is no standard trekking industry comparable to Everest Base Camp, the Baltoro Glacier, or popular routes around Muztagh Ata.

Modern attempts would also require careful attention to Chinese access restrictions and permits in this sensitive border region.

Liushi Shan should therefore be considered an expedition mountaineering objective, not a conventional climbing destination.

🏔️ Liushi Shan vs. Ulugh Muztagh

Liushi Shan and Ulugh Muztagh are two of the most important summits in the Kunlun Mountains.

Mountain	Elevation
Liushi Shan	7,167 m / 23,513 ft
Ulugh Muztagh	6,973 m / 22,877 ft

Ulugh Muztagh was historically assigned an erroneous elevation of approximately 7,723 meters, which would have made it substantially higher than Liushi Shan.

Modern surveying eventually demonstrated that Ulugh Muztagh is actually below 7,000 meters.

As a result, Liushi Shan holds the distinction of being the highest widely recognized summit of the Kunlun Mountains.

🏔️ Liushi Shan vs. Bukadaban Feng

Bukadaban Feng is another of the Kunlun’s great remote mountains.

At 6,860 meters, Bukadaban Feng is more than 300 meters lower than Liushi Shan.

Both mountains share several characteristics: extensive glaciation, enormous topographic prominence, severe high-altitude environments, exceptionally remote approaches, and comparatively limited climbing histories.

Liushi Shan’s additional distinction is its elevation above the 7,000-meter threshold.

🧭 Why Liushi Shan Is Not More Famous

On paper, Liushi Shan seems destined to be internationally famous.

It is:

More than 7,000 meters high
The highest mountain of a major Asian range
An ultra-prominent summit
Nearly 290 kilometers from higher terrain
Heavily glaciated
Historically difficult to reach

Yet it remains unknown to most people outside specialist mountaineering and geographic circles.

Location explains much of that obscurity.

The mountain lacks the famous trekking approaches of Nepal, the dramatic roadside visibility of Muztagh Ata, and the legendary expedition culture of the Karakoram.

It also rises amid surrounding terrain so high that its full elevation is difficult to appreciate visually.

Liushi Shan is therefore a giant hidden among other giants.

⭐ Why Liushi Shan Is Special

Liushi Shan is one of the most significant mountains in western China.

At 7,167 meters, it is generally recognized as the highest point of the Kunlun Mountains and one of the world’s comparatively few 7,000-meter summits.

Its 1,946 meters of prominence make it an ultra, while nearly 290 kilometers of isolation separate it from higher terrain near Saser Kangri II East.

Its first ascent required a Japanese expedition to transport supplies across remote glaciers, establish a snow cave above 6,600 meters, and climb the mountain’s east ridge in one of Asia’s most isolated high-altitude environments.

For anyone exploring the mountains of China, Liushi Shan deserves recognition as one of the country’s most extraordinary summits: the remote 7,000-meter monarch of the Kunlun Mountains.

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