evidence: For more than three decades, India and Pakistan have sent young soldiers to this harsh environment, where they remain for months at a time, guarding a remote, uninhabited wilderness. Observers began referring to the confrontation as the Siachen Glacier conflict, after the monumental sheet of ice that dominates the landscape where the disputed borders of Pakistan, India, and China meet. [...] I first heard of the Siachen Glacier from a climbing buddy who said it held some of the most desirable unclimbed mountains in the world. "It’s near the border with Pakistan," he told me. "They won’t let anyone in there to climb." The summer after my wife and I got married, we traveled to India in search of first ascents in the Nubra Valley, just outside the Indian Army’s militarized zone surrounding the Siachen. We—along with all the other mountaineers who’ve come to this region over the last 40 years—were following in the footsteps of Bull Kumar. [...] Wirsing agrees the line played a role in the conflict, but he adds, "I have no reason to think someone deliberately decided to hand this territory to Pakistan." He also has no reason to believe any peace agreements will be negotiated soon. "I have friends who say [the Siachen Glacier] should be converted into an international peace park," he says. But recent events, he notes, including continued violence in Kashmir and border tensions between India and China, make a resolution of the issue seem improbable anytime soon.