World Peaks with 1000 km of Isolation

Showing ManBear Pig's first ascent dates for climbed peaks (3 out of 86, or 3.49%)

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List Description

Isolation for any given peak is defined as the distance (in miles or kilometers) from that peak to the nearest higher land. There are no peaks higher than the given summit within the circle with a radius of its isolation distance.

This list is the first attempt to create a comprehensive and accurate list of all the peaks in the world with an isolation distance of 1000 km (621 miles) or more, based on distance to nearest higher ground. Many isolation lists, including earlier versions of this one, used distance to nearest higher summit in a database instead of the more meaningful distance to the Isolation Limit Point (ILP or nearest higher ground). However, all peaks on this list have had their ILPs manually created and checked, and the list is believed to be complete.

There could still be errors or omissions on this list. The primary issue complicating the research for isolation peaks is coral atolls. There are huge archipelagos of these extremely low flat islands, such as the Marshall Islands or the Tuamotu Islands, and if one of them is a meter higher than the rest it could have a huge isolation number. So confidence is not very high in stating that the Wake Island high point, (6 meters high) has an isolation of 1085 km based on distance to the Likiep atoll (10 meters).

Indeed, many small mid-oceanic islands show up on this list, and the worldwide peak map shows a very interesting pattern, as if the peak dots were placed completely randomly without regard to landmasses. About 30 peaks on mid-oceanic islands such as Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Easter Island, Diego Garcia, Bermuda, Saint Helena, and others make this list, over a third of the total. You can sort this list by the "Island" or "Area" columns to group together peaks on islands.

(Note that previous versions of this list did not assign a rank to peaks located on islands with areas under 1000 square kilometers, but that arbitrary distinction has been abolished. Now all peaks are treated equally, no matter if the area within their isolation radius is mostly land or water.)

For the globe-trotting peakbagger, this is a somewhat attractive list, similar to the World 100 Most Prominent Peaks list, with which it shares 28 peaks. The only 8000 meter peaks on the list are Everest and K2.

One interesting quirk of this list is the distribution by country. Here are the six largest countries by area and their count of 1000 km isolation peaks:

• Russia: 8
• Canada: 0
• China: 3 (all on the border)
• USA: 7
• Brazil: 2
• Australia: 4

It is very odd that the second largest country has zero peaks on this list, with the most isolated peaks in Canada being Mount Barbeau and Mount Caubvick, both with under 800 km. Large areas of land with a continuous slope or a "staircase" of higher and higher peaks will not produce many high-isolation peaks, and this appears to be the case for Canada.