Cate Reilly, South Enylcheck Base Camp #1, Kyrgyz Republic, July 2026 (LANDSCAPE & ENVIRONMENT 2026)

At 4060 metres, on Kyrgyzstan’s border with Kazakhstan & China, the base camp perches on the South Enylcheck Glacier’s moraine and operates as a jump-off point for alpinists seeking to summit Khan Tengri and Jengish Chokusu (also known as Pik Pobeda), the two northernmost 7,000 metre+ peaks on the planet. I arrived on an eye-stingingly blue-sky day. The harsh light at this altitude added to the surreal, almost other-worldly sense of the vastness and remoteness of the landscape, and its unyielding, uncompromising beauty. I wanted to capture that feeling. Part of a series of images made on 17, 18 and 19 July 2026.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.