Hkakabo Razi

A 5,881-metre peak in northern Myanmar, near the borders of Tibet and India, in the eastern Himalayan foothills. Hkakabo Razi is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia in the broad geographic sense — significantly higher than Kinabalu, though in a region whose continental classification has been disputed. The peak sits in one of the most remote and politically restricted regions in Asia. Access requires extended approach through dense rainforest and along trails that have been maintained sporadically by the Lisu and Rawang ethnic communities of upper Myanmar.

The first confirmed ascent came in 1996 by a Japanese expedition led by Takashi Ozaki. The summit was reached on September 15, 1996, after an approach that required nearly six weeks from the nearest road. Ozaki's expedition was the first to reach the summit with documented evidence; an earlier 1996 Burmese expedition had claimed the summit but was not verified. The climb itself involved sustained technical sections on the upper mountain, with mixed climbing on steep rock and ice and a final summit ridge that required careful routing.

The mountain has been climbed perhaps a dozen times in the years since the first ascent. In 2014, a Burmese-American expedition disappeared on the upper mountain; the bodies of the climbers Aung Myint Myat and Wai Yan Min Thu were never recovered. The expedition's GPS data suggested that they had reached a high point near the summit before going missing in storm conditions. The disappearance has produced extended discussion within the international climbing community about the actual elevation and the verifiability of summits in this remote region; subsequent satellite measurements have confirmed Hkakabo Razi's height as 5,881 metres, consistent with the original survey.

What Hkakabo Razi represents in the Atlas is a category of peak — geographically remote, politically restricted, technically demanding, climbed by very few — that has no equivalent in the more accessible mountain ranges. The summit views, when reached, extend across the eastern Himalayan foothills toward Tibet and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.