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map from 1945; the two longitude lines are 212 nautical miles apart

     The Kok Shal Mountains are a part of the Tien Shan range. They run roughly east-west, separating Kirgizstan (to the north) from the Sinkiang basin (to the south). They're about 400 miles long and 40 miles wide; the tallest mountain in this range (and in the entire Tian Shan) is Victory Peak (known as Tomur, or "Iron Mountain", in Uighur), at 24,400' (and currently unclimbed).* Tengri Khan, at the head of the Inylchek glacier, is more dramatic, but 'only' 23,000' tall; it's made of pink marble! Both of these mountains are right on the Soviet-Chinese border.

     Glaciers cover the slopes on both sides of this range; pretty much the whole area is either jagged rocks or glacial ice, with several high-elevation lakes. The largest lake is the Merzbacher, leading off from the Inylchek glacier (about 6 miles long, half-a-mile wide, at 11,000' above sea level, and frozen over for half the year; the glacier itself is at least 40 miles long). On the map above, the foot of the glacier is about at the "N" in "Tien". The Merzbacher lake "dries up" in the mid-summer, when it rushes out through the lower end of the Inylchek glacier over a period of a day or so. Even when un-frozen, the various lakes often have chunks of ice floating in them -- most or all of them are at the foot of some glacier or other.

     The main passes through the Kok Shal are Bedel (about in the middle), Turugart (to the west), and the Muzart (just east of Tengri Khan). Winds at the peaks can reach 170 miles per hour in the winter!

     To the south of the Kok Shal mountains, there is a long valley running parallel to the mountains; the Karateke Shan (a relatively low, snow-free range of mountains, with the highest peak "only" 10,140' above sea level) separates this valley from the Taklamakan desert (about 4,000' above sea level here). Old caravan routes of the Silk Road follow the rivers, with branches crossing the mountains at Bedel and Torugart; the Taushkan River runs along the bottom of the valley, fed by runoff from the many glaciers.

     Here's our hex map for the area, with 16 mile hexes. The Merzbacher Lake is shown in blue, running along the Inylchek glacier.

*there are some inaccuracy in-period about the height of Victory Peak and of Tengri Khan.