Photo of the Day 408

Trango Tower, Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan, 1996

Photograph by Bill Hatcher

Tucked within the Karakoram Range of the Himalaya near the Pakistan-China border, the spires of the Trango Group protrude from the icy landscape like shark's teeth. Within this group stands Trango Tower, a sheer, nearly 3,000-foot (915-meter) dagger of granite. In 1996, a group of intrepid mountaineers became the first to successfully free-climb the tower's East Face. Here, expedition member Todd Skinner works to set up a hanging camp anchored to the tower some 19,500 feet (5,950 meters) above sea level.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Storming the Tower," April 1996, National Geographic magazine)