Snow Leopard award

The Snow Leopard award (Russian: Снежный барс) was a Soviet mountaineering award, given to highly skilled mountain climbers.

To receive this award, a climber was required to summit all five peaks within the former Soviet Union with elevation greater than 7,000 m (23,000 ft).

[citation needed] In the Tian Shan there are two Snow Leopard peaks, Jengish Chokusu (formerly Peak Pobeda) 7,439 metres (24,406 ft) in Kyrgyzstan (divided by the border with China), and Khan Tengri 7,010 metres (23,000 ft) on the Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan border.

Khan Tengri's geologic elevation is 6,995 metres (22,949 ft) but its glacial cap rises to 7,010 metres (23,000 ft).

[citation needed] There are more than 600 climbers, including 31 women, who have received this award between 1961 and 2012 (although not all of them completed the five peaks).