Since 13 April 1984, Indian and Pakistani troops have confronted each other, eyeball to eyeball, for control of the Siachen Glacier and its approaches in the eastern Karakoram mountain range, adjacent to the borders of India, Pakistan and China. The conflict has resulted in hundreds of casualties, caused more by adverse climatic conditions and harsh terrain than the occasional military skirmish.
This is by far the longest-running armed conflict between two regular armies in the 20th century. However, this is not a declared war. India and Pakistan continue to maintain full diplomatic relations with each other, and have many other ties, including economic and academic. Neither is this a conventional conflict: although both armies are conventionally armed, weather, altitude, and terrain make this uninhabitable region an unlikely zone of armed strife.
The Siachen Glacier is one of the most inhospitable and glaciated regions in the world. Sliding down a valley in the Karakoram Range, the glacier is 76 km long and varies in width between 2 and 8 km. It receives 6 to 7 m of the annual total of 10 m of snow in winter alone. Blizzards can reach speeds up to 150 knots (nearly 300 km per hour). The temperature routinely drops to 40 degrees Celsius below zero, and even lower with the wind chill factor. For these reasons, the Siachen Glacier has been called the "Third Pole".
This epithet, however, is misleading as it focuses solely on the adverse weather conditions and completely ignores the deleterious impact of altitude and terrain. The high altitude compounds the severity of the bitter climatic conditions. Base camp for Indian forces is 12,000 feet above sea level. The altitude of some Indian forward bases on the Saltoro Ridge ranges from Kumar (16,000 feet) and Bila Top (18,600 feet) to Pahalwan (20,000 feet) and Indira Col (22,000 feet). Because of the steep gradient of the Saltoro Range, the area is also prone to avalanches. These adverse conditions have direct consequences: since the war began, only 3 percent of the Indian casualties have been caused by hostile firing. The remaining 97 percent have fallen prey to the altitude, weather, and terrain.