Gasherbrum
— — ice that has not been asked to be famous.
Not only on a wall.
“A massif of six high peaks in the Karakoram, on the border between Pakistan and the Xinjiang region of China. Gasherbrum I, also called Hidden Peak, stands at 8,080 metres; Gasherbrum II at 8,035. Most climbers reach them from the south, up the Baltoro Glacier from Skardu. The Chinese side is the quieter one — the Shaksgam Valley, north walls in shadow most of the day, almost no human traffic. The name in Balti is said to mean the shining wall. from the studio
Gasherbrum, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Gasherbrum is a remote massif in the Karakoram range, straddling the border between Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan and China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is made up of six peaks, four of them over 7,900 metres. Gasherbrum I, known as Hidden Peak, reaches 8,080 metres and is the eleventh-highest mountain on Earth; Gasherbrum II reaches 8,035 metres and is the thirteenth. The Chinese side of the massif looks down on the Shaksgam Valley, a tributary of the Yarkand River system, which lies inside the disputed Trans-Karakoram Tract.
Above 8,000 metres the air holds about a third of the oxygen of sea level, and ridge winds in the Karakoram routinely run over 100 kilometres per hour. Gasherbrum I was first climbed in 1958 by an American expedition led by Nick Clinch; Gasherbrum II was first climbed in 1956 by an Austrian party including Fritz Moravec. The Chinese north faces remain the quietest aspect of the massif, rarely climbed and almost never photographed, partly because access via the Shaksgam Valley requires a long unsupported approach from the Karakash side.
There is no road to the foot of the Chinese-side Gasherbrums. The Shaksgam Valley is reached from Kashgar across the Aghil Pass, an approach that takes weeks and requires permits seldom granted. The southern Baltoro approach in Pakistan is the famous one, walked by trekkers every summer; the northern approach from Xinjiang sees a handful of expeditions in a decade. The result is one of the largest concentrations of eight-thousand-metre rock and ice on the planet, almost entirely without a human audience on its quieter side.