- These bizarre mountains have everything from strobe-light lakes to rocks hollowed out by monks.
Mountains are big hunks of rock towering to the sky, right? Some are, sure, but there are mountains that are much more than that.
Some mountains might be just big rocks, but they’re uniquely or even bizarrely shaped big rocks. And then there are those mountains that do something utterly unhinged, from hosting strange species not found anywhere else to breaking the rules of how hot lava should be.
Here are nine examples of the oddest mountains in the world.
1. Zhangjiajie Spires
Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in central China is famous for its unique, otherworldly stone spires. These tall, narrow mountains rise to 3,500 feet at their tallest.
The one-of-a-kind mountains have been a tourist attraction for thousands of years, having been depicted in ancient Chinese paintings and poems. They were formed by a combination of freezing and expanding ice and erosion stemming from the thick vegetation that grows atop the spires.
Fun fact: these mountains inspired the floating islands of the planet Pandora in the Avatar movies.
2. Devils Tower
Devils Tower is a huge, monolithic butte located in the Black Hills of Wyoming. Its flat top reaches more than 5,000 feet above sea level, although compared to the surrounding landscape, the tower is “only” 860 feet high.
This black, towering mountain features heavily in Native American mythos and religion – which probably doesn’t surprise anyone! Yet the stone tower is so impressive that President Theodore Roosevelt declared it the first United States national monument in 1906.
Devils Tower is also a movie star. It’s a main plot element in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (I won’t spoil the plot for you, though).
3. Cappadocia’s Fairy Chimneys
Fairy chimneys – tall and narrow rock formations – are found throughout the Turkish region of Cappadocia. The most famous of them, however, are the “mushroom” chimneys of Pasabag Valley.
These bizarre mini mountains earned their name from their thick stems topped by a conical “cap.” Walking among them certainly makes you feel like you’re wandering through a humongous mushroom patch.
But the weirdest part is that many of the spires are hollowed out. That’s the work of the ancient hermit monks who lived inside the chimneys to pray and meditate in peace.
4. Garni Gorge
The Garni Gorge area of Armenia is known for its odd, tall cliffs. Although they are certainly high, their most striking features are the hundreds of almost perfectly hexagonal columns that hang off the cliffsides.
These geometric structures have puzzled the area’s residents for millennia. It’s no wonder that many religious sites have been built in the gorge over the years. Modern geology has determined that the unique columns were carved by the Goght River flowing at the bottom of the gorge.
5. Chocolate Hills
The Chocolate Hills, located on the Indonesian island of Bohol, make you think someone went nuts with a copy-paste tool. More than 1,500 nearly identical conical hills cover an area spanning more than 20 square miles.
These hills were once part of an ancient ocean floor. The motion of the waves smoothed out the marine limestone, slowly forming the undulating hills.
After the oceans receded, a thick layer of grass grew on the hills. During the dry season, the grass turns into a dark, orange-brown color, which gives the Chocolate Hills their name.
6. Ol Doinyo Lengai
Old Doinyo Lengai in Tanzania is one cool volcano. I mean that literally. The magma this mountain spews is bizarrely cold, reaching the surface at a refreshingly cool 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Consequently, the lava is almost pitch black instead of the red-hot glowing stuff we’re used to. Old Doinyo Lengai is the only volcano in the world known to produce this type of lava, and the reasons aren’t completely understood.
The lava is also weirdly fluid, running quickly down the mountainsides before cooling and creating strange-looking off-white layers on Ol Doinyo Lengai’s slopes.
7. Mount Roraima
Mount Roraima on the border of Venezuela and Brazil is weird in many ways. First of all, this tall, expansive table mountain cuts a striking silhouette as its flat top towers 7,600 feet above the surrounding landscape.
Due to its height, the flora and fauna on top of Mount Roraima is completely different from the surrounding regions. Animals and plants unique to this mountain include black, thumbnail-sized toads and colorful carnivorous swamp plants.
Like the Zhangjiajie Spires and Devils Tower, Mount Roraima’s strangeness inspired famous works of fiction. Its unusual animal life gave the spark to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, which in turn influenced the second Jurassic Park movie.
8. Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash is among the holiest mountains in the world. This pyramid-shaped Tibetan mountain is sacred to at least four religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and the Tibetan native religion Bon.
Believers of each religion regularly make pilgrimages to the towering mountain. Yet, no one has ever been known to have actually climbed it.
The Chinese government doesn’t allow anyone to climb Kailash due to its religious significance. In the 1980s, famed Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner was offered the rare opportunity to scale Mount Kailash, but he politely declined, reportedly saying, “If we conquer this mountain, then we conquer something in people’s souls.”
9. Kelimutu
Kelimutu is an Indonesian volcano, which would be fairly unremarkable if not for the three crater lakes at its summit. These bodies of water have something of an RGB strobe light effect going on.
The lakes’ waters change colors independently of each other at irregular intervals due to volcanic activity. While each lake typically has its characteristic color, they shift freely from bright turquoise blue to red, green, yellow, and milky white.
Changes in Kelimutu’s lakes seem completely random, but geologists believe that there’s a pattern to them. No one has simply been able to figure it out yet.
Up for more geographic weirdness? Check out the world’s 9 strangest rivers!