For most of the 19th century, the people who watched the dawn from the hills above Darjeeling believed they were looking at the highest mountain in the world. Kangchenjunga, at 8,586 m, filled the northern sky so completely that no one doubted it. Visitors wrote home about the highest peak on earth rising above the tea gardens.
The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India took careful readings of the high peaks, and in 1849 the calculations showed that a distant summit in the west, known then only as Peak XV, was higher. That summit was Everest. Until 1852 Kangchenjunga was still assumed to be the highest, and in 1856 it was announced as the third highest, after Everest and K2.
From Tiger Hill you can see both rivals on a clear morning. Kangchenjunga stands huge and close, about 80 km away. Everest is a small grey point far to the west, with Lhotse and Makalu beside it. Standing there, it is easy to understand why early observers took the nearer, larger mountain for the highest.
For the Lepcha and Bhutia people of Sikkim the mountain was never about height. Kangchenjunga is a guardian deity, honoured each year at Pang Lhabsol, and climbers who reach the summit traditionally stop a few metres short of the top out of respect. That custom began with the first ascent in 1955 and has largely been kept since.
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Legends are retold differently from village to village. Where a story is told locally rather than written down, we say so.
