While preparing this site, it occurred to me to compare the various climbing zones, both in terms of relative height differences, absolute altitude and the horizontal distances. The results seem to demonstrate the sort of terrains that can be referred to as suitable for Alpine climbing techniques.

The four areas are:

• Chamonix in the French Alps - The Aiguille Verte.

• The Hindu Kush in Afghanistan - Koh-i Marchech.

• The Cordillera Real in Bolivia - Ancohuma and Casiri Este.

• The Hindu Raj in Pakistan - Koyo Zom.

The only slight surprise was the relatively smaller altitude difference in Bolivia, which seems in contradiction with the subjective feel of being more "serious". The explanation may be that we were climbing in winter unlike the three other areas. The other interesting, if less surprising, conclusion is that the altitude difference in the Alps themselves are as great, or greater, than climbing areas generally imagined to be much "bigger" - of course the absolute altitude is significantly lower. Even so, if, on the relative graph, Mont Blanc had been plotted, instead of the Aiguille Verte, the plot would have gone higher than Koyo Zom!

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Updated 21/04/2014