K2 is on the border between what in 1938 was the British Raj of India (now Pakistan) and the Republic of China. At it is the highest point of the Karakoram range and the second highest mountain in the world. The mountain had been spotted in 1856 by the Great Trigonometrical Survey to Kashmir and by 1861 Henry Godwin-Austen had reached the Baltoro Glacier and was able to get a clear view of K2 from the slopes of Masherbrum. He could see the descending glacier eventually drained to the Indus River and so the mountain was in the British Empire. K2 is further north than the Himalayan mountains so the climate is colder; the Karakoram range is wider than the Himalayan so more ice and snow is trapped there.