Klyuchevskaya Sopka

Klyuchevskaya Sopka (4,750 m or 15,584 ft), located 56° 04' N, 160° 38' E, is the highest mountain on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, and the highest volcano in Asia. Its steep, symmetrical cone towers just sixty miles from the Bering Sea. Klyuchevskaya's first recorded eruption was in 1697, and it has been almost continuously active ever since, as have many of its neighboring volcanoes. Klyuchevskaya last erupted in 1995. First climbed in 1788 by Daniel Gauss and two other members of the Billings Expedition. No other ascents were then recorded until 1931, when several climbers were killed by the flying lava as they descended. Similar dangers exist today, and few ascents are made.