Meru Peak
— — the shark's fin of granite above the ice.
Not only on a wall.
“A 6,660-metre peak in the Indian Garhwal Himalaya, west of Nanda Devi and just north of the Gangotri Glacier that feeds the Ganges. The central summit ends in a vertical sheet of granite called the Shark's Fin, climbed for the first time in 2011 by Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk. From the meadow at Tapovan the peak reads as one clean line. from the studio
Meru Peak, 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.
Meru rises to 6,660 metres in the Gangotri group of the Garhwal Himalaya in Uttarakhand, inside Gangotri National Park. The mountain sits west of Shivling and immediately above the Gangotri Glacier, the principal source of the Bhagirathi River and one of the headstreams of the Ganges. The three summits of Meru — north, central, and southern — present three distinct walls. The peak is approached from the trailhead at Gangotri town through the meadow camp at Tapovan.
Meru Central ends in the Shark's Fin, a 1,500-metre wall of compact granite that climbers had attempted since the 1980s without success. Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk completed the first ascent in October 2011 after a previous attempt in 2008 turned back in storm. The route mixes mixed alpine ice with severe big-wall granite at altitude and is regarded as one of the hardest mixed climbs ever done. The 2015 documentary 'Meru' records the climb.
The trekking and climbing window runs roughly May to early June and again September to October, bracketing the southwest monsoon that closes the upper Bhagirathi valley from late June through August. The trailhead town of Gangotri sits at 3,100 metres; the meadow camp at Tapovan above the glacier snout sits near 4,460 metres. Nights at base camp drop well below freezing even in summer. The thin air and exposed granite make the peak a serious objective at any season.