Nanga Paebat.

Nanga Parbat is the most isolated and perhaps the most imposing of all the peaks of Asia. With the exception of subordinate pinnacles rising from its own buttresses, no peak within 60 miles of Nanga Parbat attains an altitude of more than 17000 feet. Throughout a circle of 120 miles diameter Nanga Parbat surpasses all other summits by more than 9000 feet. Its upper 5000 feet are precipitous.

"Perhaps in describing mountains," wrote John Ruskin in Modern Painters, "with any effort to give some idea of their sublime forms, no expression comes oftener "to the lips than the word ' peak,' and yet it is curious, how rarely even among the "grandest ranges an instance can be found of a mountain ascertainably peaked in the "true sense of the word,—pointed at the top and sloping steeply on all sides."

Nanga Parbat 

Fairy Meadows in Pakistan

Elevation: 8,126 m (26,660 ft)

Ranked 9th

A traveler in the Himalaya, who has studied the writings of Ruskin, must constantly be impressed with the accuracy of his observations. How often do we see a high peak towering above us, only to find on ascending that it is but an obtuse angle in the slope of a buttress? How often is a needle discovered to be but the end of a sharp edged ridge?  

But no one can question the claims of Nanga Parbat: its form and its solitude render it a "peak," however we define the word.

"Nanga Parbat's summit," wrote Colonel Tanner, 

"Is 26620 feet above the sea, and its base stands on the left side of the Indus valley, which at that point is but 3500 feet: it therefore exposes 23120 feet of its side to an observer, who, standing as near as he may dare to the edge of perhaps the most lofty cliff in the world with the Indus valley 12000 feet below him, may regard at the distance of less than 40 miles the unparalleled view presented by the vast snow fields, glaciers, and crags of this King of Mountains. It is a scene that is not grasped or taken in at once, but after a while the stupendous grandeur of the view is appreciated. It is quite overwhelming in its magnitude; it is in fact one of the grandest spectacles that nature offers to the gaze of man."

Nanga Parbat 

Location: Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan

Range: Himalayas

Coordinates: 35°14′15″N 74°35′21″E

First ascent{ July 3, 1953 by Hermann Buhl

Until the height of Nanga Parbat had been determined by the Great Trigonometrical Survey, it was given on maps as 19000 feet. An error amounting to 7600 feet in defect in the case of a solitary impressive peak shows how worthless are over estimations of height.