Seven Second Summits Guinea's Carstensz Pyramid, which is part of Indonesia (4,884 m). Following the Bass list, Mount Townsend is the second-highest summit (2,209 m) in Australia. According to the Messner list, Puncak Mandala (4,760 m) on New Guinea is the second highest of the Australian continent. Heights of mountain peaks in West Papua are poorly established, and Puncak Trikora has been listed as the second-highest summit on the island, but SRTM data do support a higher elevation for Mandala. Both lists count Mount Elbrus as the highest peak in Europe. This makes Dykh-Tau (5,205 m), located in Russia, the second-highest summit in
Mount Elbrus The Soviet Union encouraged ascents of Elbrus, and in 1956 it was climbed "en masse" by 400 mountaineers to mark the 400th anniversary of the incorporation of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic where Elbrus was located. From 1959 through 1976, a cable car system was built in stages that can take visitors as high as . There are a wide variety of routes up the mountain, but the normal route, which is free of crevasses, continues more or less straight up the slope from the end of the cable car system. During the summer, it is not uncommon for