Mount Thor, officially gazetted as Thor Peak, is a mountain

Mountain

Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

 with an elevation of 1,675 m (5,495 ft) located in Auyuittuq National Park

Auyuittuq National Park

Auyuittuq National Park is a national park located on Baffin Island's Cumberland Peninsula, Qikiqtaaluk Region in Nunavut, the largest political subdivision of Canada. It features the many terrains of Arctic wilderness, such as fjords, glaciers, and ice fields...

, on Baffin Island

Baffin Island

Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut is the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is and its population is about 11,000...

, Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The mountain is located 46 km (28.6 mi) northeast of Pangnirtung

Pangnirtung, Nunavut

Pangnirtung is an Inuit hamlet, Qikiqtaaluk Region, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, located on Baffin Island. As of the 2006 census the population was 1,325, an increase of 3.8% from the 2001 census...

 and features the Earth's greatest purely vertical drop

Extremes on Earth

This article describes extreme locations on Earth. Entries listed in bold are Earth-wide extremes.-Extreme elevations and temperatures per continent:This article describes extreme locations on Earth. Entries listed in bold are Earth-wide extremes....

 at 1250 m (4,101 ft), with an average angle of 105 degrees. This feature makes the site popular with climber

Rock climbing

Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

s, despite its remoteness. Camping is allowed, with the only official site being at the entrance to the Akshayuk Valley near Overlord Peak.

Mount Thor is part of the Baffin Mountains

Baffin Mountains

The Baffin Mountains are a mountain range running along the northeastern coast of Baffin Island and Bylot Island, Nunavut are part of the Arctic Cordillera. The ice-capped mountains are some of the highest peaks of eastern North America, reaching a height of above sea level...

 which in turn form part of the Arctic Cordillera

Arctic Cordillera

The Arctic Cordillera is a vast, deeply dissected chain of mountain ranges extending along the northeastern flank of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from Ellesmere Island to the northeasternmost part of the Labrador Peninsula in northern Labrador and northern Quebec, Canada...

 mountain range

Mountain range

A mountain range is a single, large mass consisting of a succession of mountains or narrowly spaced mountain ridges, with or without peaks, closely related in position, direction, formation, and age; a component part of a mountain system or of a mountain chain...

. The mountain is made of granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 and is the most famous of Canada's mountains named "Thor".

Mount Thor was first climbed in 1953 by an Arctic Institute of North America team. The team members were Hans Weber, J Rothlisberger and F. Schwarzenbach. The same men climbed the North Tower of Mount Asgard

Mount Asgard

Mount Asgard is a twin peaked mountain with two flat-topped cylindrical rock towers, separated by a saddle. It is located in Auyuittuq National Park, on the Cumberland Peninsula of Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. The peak is named after Asgard, the realm of the gods in Norse mythology...

 for the first time.

The world record for longest rappel

Abseiling

Abseiling , rappelling in American English, is the controlled descent down a rock face using a rope; climbers use this technique when a cliff or slope is too steep and/or dangerous to descend without protection.- Slang terms :...

 was set on Mount Thor, July 23, 2006, by an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

team consisting of: Chuck Constable, Dirk Siron, Ben Holley, Kenneth Waite, Gordon Rosser, Donny Opperman, Deldon Barfuss, and Tim Hudson. A 26-year-old Canadian national park warden, Philip Robinson, also rappelled, but had a problem with his equipment and was killed when he dropped to the base of the mountain. There had been a previous attempt in 2004, but they returned without rappelling due to dangerous weather conditions.

Notable ascents

• 1985 Direct West Face FA by Earl Redfern, John Bagley, Eric Brand, Tom Bepler.

External links

• A Dallas Morning News article about Mt. Thor and other Akshayuk Pass features by writer Dave Levinthal