Arthur Digbee wrote:JackCarr wrote:Importance and altitude do not go hand in hand. Quality of climbing is far more important.
And geography, in the sense of being close to a lot of wealthy people with time on their hands. Would the British mountains be "important" if they were anywhere else?
The Alps present the same story, important because they're surrounded by wealthy countries. The Caucasus? Not so much. Perhaps if we had more Russian climbers on SP they would make a more effective lobby for the Caucasus over the Alps.
Well access is a pretty obvious measure of importance yeah.
To me a mountain range is important if it contains numerous mountains significant in the sport of mountaineering - which the Alps has in abundance. The main argument for the Caucasus seems to be because it has the highest mountain in Europe (though I'm very much in the camp that while politically it may be European, it's geographically and culturally far more Asian) which is significant for only one endeavour - the seven summits.
I'm not disputing the Caucasus is an important range, but as I said before, mountaineering as a concept and as a sport was born in the Alps. Its ease of access shouldn't be held against it.