Lhotse Middle (or also called Lhotse Central I and Lhotse East), is a subsidiary peak of in elevation that sits in the middle of a ridge between its parent peak, the eight-thousander,

Lhotse Lhotse ( ne, ल्होत्से ; , ''lho tse'', ) is the fourth highest mountain in the world at , after Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. The main summit is on the border between Tibet Autonomous Region of China and the Khumbu ...

, and another subsidiary peak,

Lhotse Shar Lhotse Shar is a subsidiary mountain of Lhotse, at high. It was first climbed by Sepp Mayerl and Rolf Walter on 12 May 1970. Climbing routes and dangers Lhotse Shar is located far from the main summit's standard route of ascent via the South Co ...

. In 2013, a proposal by Nepal to the

International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation, commonly known by its French name Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme (UIAA, lit. ''International Union of Alpine Clubs''), was founded in August 1932 in Chamonix, France ...

(UIAA) to have Lhotse Middle (and Lhotse Shar) designated as standalone eight-thousanders was not successful due a perceived lack of

topographic prominence In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...

. Right beside the peak is the smaller subsidiary peak of Lhotse Central II (; sometimes the term West tower and East tower are used to distinguish Lhotse Central I and Lhotse Central II, respectively (which can create confusion given Lhotse Middle's alternative name as Lhotse East, i.e being east of the parent Lhotse summit).

Climbing history

Lhotse Middle was first climbed in 2001 by three groups of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n climbers. The first ascent was made on 23 May 2001 by Eugeny Vinogradsky, Sergei Timofeev, Alexei Bolotov, and Petr Kuznetsov; while on May 24, an ascent was made by Nikolai Zhilin, Gleb Sokolov, and Yuri Koshelenko. Vladimir Yanochkin, while Victor Volodin reached the summit on May 27. The Russian expedition was led by Nikolay Cherny and Victor Kozlov. Vasily Elagin and Yuri Ermachek were other expedition participants. At the time, Lhotse Middle was one of the last unclimbed named peaks above eight-thousand-meters (although as a subsidiary peak, it was not considered an eight-thousander). Several members of the 2001 expedition had attempted to reach the summit in 1997, but bad weather forced them to abandon the attempt, and one climber, Vladimir Bashkirov, died during the descent.

References

{{Eight-thousander Eight-thousanders of the Himalayas Mountains of the Province No. 1 Mountains of Tibet