Gipmochi

Gipmochi (Gyemo Chen or Gamochen, 'The Great Queen')[2] is a mountain in the Lower Himalayas in south central Asia.

Technically Gipmochi is part of the Zompelri ridge, which is a curved semicircular formation on the southern side of the plateau.

In the 19th century, the existence of the plateau was not recognised, and the Dongkya Range itself was thought to be curving south and dividing into a western and an eastern branch.

The Teesta river basin of Sikkim is further west, the dividing line being a moraine at Kupup, below the Jelep La pass.

To the northeast of Gipmochi lies the basin of the Amo Chu river, which rises in the Chumbi Valley and flows into Bhutanese territory near Sinche La.

[9] After Walker's premature death, Andrew Scott Waugh, the Surveyor General of India, joined the Darjeeling survey party and fixed the positions and heights of all the visible peaks using trigonometric methods.

After touring the northern Sikkim (Lachung area), he returned to the then Sikkimese capital Tumlong, and along with Archibald Campbell, the superintendent of Darjeeling, attempted to go to Chumbi via the Cho La pass.

In 1864, the Anglo-Bhutan War was fought, at the end of which, through the Treaty of Sinchula, the British gained control over the present day Kalimpong district.

Richard Temple, the lieutenant-governor of the Bengal Presidency during 1874–1877, states that the British had begun to construct a cart road to the Jelep La pass for trade with Tibet.

[16] His cartographer however continued to show Mount Gipmochi on the Dongkya range, in the tradition of Joseph Hooker, and placed the Bitang Tso to its south in Bhutanese territory.

[20] The Chinese claim of the trijunction point is based on the 1890 Anglo-Chinese Convention,[21] Article I of which states: The boundary of Sikkim and Tibet shall be the crest of the mountain range separating the waters flowing into the Sikkim Teesta and its affluents from the waters flowing into the Tibetan Mochu [Amo Chhu] and northwards into other rivers of Tibet.

A Chinese observation post on the mountain of Gipmochi would have a clear view of this vital corridor which is heavily fortified by Indian troops.

Map 1: Gipmochi, Doklam plateau and vicinity, shown along with the Dichu river basin in orange
View of Himalayan peaks from Darjeeling (1885 photograph)
Map 2: Section of the Sikkim map showing southeast Sikkim by Joseph Dalton Hooker (1854); marked on the far right is "Gipmochi of Col. Waugh, 14,509".
Map 3: Map accompanying Richard Temple's paper