Manas Glacier

The Manas Glacier is a glacier on the northern flank of Manas Peak, the highest summit of the Talas Alatau, on the tribal side of the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line. It is about 2.6 kilometers long and covers about 1.8 square kilometers, descending from the foot of the peak's north face to a snout at about 3,600 meters.^[1] It is one of the two benchmark glaciers on which the Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory measures mass balance each year, and its snout has retreated by about 450 meters since 1970. Its meltwater feeds headwaters of the Talas.^[1][2]

Above the glacier the north face of Manas Peak rises as a wall of ice and rock about 1,200 meters high, first climbed by Soviet mountaineers in 1968 and attempted only a few times since 1992.^[1]

References

1. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Fifty Years on Manas: The Manas Peak Glaciological Observatory, 1964–2014. Talas.
2. ^ Glaciological Institute of Central Asia (2021). Glacial Mass Balance and Permafrost Dynamics in the Talas Alatau. Bishkek–Almaty, pp. 45–62.