Rising high above sea level, nature’s miracles are a result of time and tectonics.

But which mountains are the most iconic?

That’s a difficult one to decide, and we didn’t want to get into any trouble, so we left it to CNN.

After apologising to “Annapurna, Mont Blanc, Whitney, Waddington, Kirkjufell, Kanchenjunga, Aoraki, Half Dome, the Dolomites, all 282 Scottish Munros, the Rock of Gibraltar and every other singular summit out there” and leaving out Mount Everest, they finally got to it.

Here’s our favourite five from their list of 12:

K2, China/ Pakistan

Famous for its sheer beauty, the 8 000 metre “Mountain of Mountains” is the world’s second highest peak after Everest. Known for its nasty weather and unsettling climbing stats, K2 has only been summitted by 300 elite alpinists, compared with more than 4 000 up Everest, proving “the second highest summit on any given continent or planet may be an even taller order than bagging the first”.

Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Africa’s “highest hill”, Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano that is also the world’s tallest free-standing mountain. Its slopes are home to more ecological zones and exotic fauna than any other mountain in its class, and get this:

Kilimanjaro can now also claim to be the site of the highest ever cricket match, played with great enjoyment by an international group of cricketers on a level crater at just under 19,000 feet a few years ago.

Mount Fuji, Japan

Along with flowering cherry blossoms and red pagoda tiers, Mount Fuji is a classic symbol of Japan, sitting just 100km southwest of Toyko.

One of the world’s most scaled mountains, its last eruption was on December 16, 1707 and has since inspired a proverb:

“He who climbs Mount Fuji once is a wise man. He who climbs it twice is a fool.”

Uluru, Australia

Uluru is Australia’s iconic inselberg (island mountain) and, although it sits around 450km from the nearest town, it attracts over 250 000 annual visitors.

According to CNN, Europeans discovered Uluru in 1873 and named it after a “prominent Aussie diplomat (Ayers) tens of millennia after the area’s Aboriginals first laid eyes and names on it”:

Millions of years old, the surreal sandstone formation (co-existing as a sacred native site and a national park) is an isolated remnant of an eroded mountain range — and one of the world’s top bucket list sunrise/sunset photo ops, when its iron-rich walls glow like a 2-mile-long spacecraft.

Although climbing the mountain is prohibited, people still do it – gotta get them Instagram shots.

Table Mountain, South Africa

Of course she’s there.

Our very own beloved coastal landmark welcomes around 800 000 visitors a year, who climb the mountain either by foot or cable car. With a 3,5km-wide plateau, it’s over half a billion years old and ranks among one of the world’s oldest mountains.

It’s especially loved by botanists, for “its nearly 1 500 floral species, several of them endemic to the hill”.

You can see the rest of CNN’s picks here, and if you feel the need to make mention of a mountain you deem a whole lot more iconic, let us know.

We’ll wait.

[source:cnn]