ASIAN ALPINE E-NEWSIssue No 64. April 2020

Kangri Garpo Lhagu Glacier – Gongyada 6423m (left), Zeh 6126m (right) east face

C0NTENTS
Alpinist 69 with supplements“Secrets on the Maps”
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Tamotsu Nakamura

Page 2 ~ 20

2020 March Issue

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SECRETS ON THE MAPS(“Alpinist 69” Spring Issue 2020 with Supplements)
Tamotsu (Tom) Nakamura‘’’Today the map has no more secrets.’

Kangri Garpo East, Lhagu Glacier – Gongyada 6423m (left). Zeh 612m (right) east face

Environment science professor Mauri Pelto reports that Lhagu Glacier retreated
1.2 kilo- meters since 2001.
Melting water from Tibetan Glacier feeds rivers that supply
water to 1.3 billion people in Asia. In a 2015 statement,Dalai Lama spoke of the need for climate change action for“survival of humanity” and environmental protection on theTibetan Plateau, for the sake of “the environmental healthand sustainability of the entire world”.
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“Idle minds repeat that parrot phrase. But who knows all Tibet, or its far-away frontier on western China.’’
The Austrian-American explorer Joseph Rock wrote these words in a 1930 article for National Geographic,
four years before I was born. Some would convince themselves that encounters with veiled mountains are an
experience in the past, there are vast and complex topographies in the Greater Ranges that hold countless
peaks. Many of these summits will remain enigmas for generations. I grew up in Tokyo, Japan, surrounded
by increasingly tall buildings as the city rebuilt after the war. At Hitotsubashi University, I studied commerceand accounting. At age eighteen, however, my life began to change. I joined the mountaineering club andstarted climbing in the Japanese Alps. Although these well-traveled summits were fewer than 4000m high,in summer, their steep rock faces flashed in the sun, in winter, their slopes transformed into a glittering
realm of white drifts and bitter cold. Still, as I read about much bigger ranges abroad, I became overwhelmedby thoughts of all the mighty peaks I’d never seen. In 1961, I went on an expedition to make first ascents in
Bolivia and Peru, where I encountered wild snow fluting and chaotic glacial ice, crisp and surreal in the thin,
Andean air. Afterward, I kept venturing overseas in search of other enticing mountains. I came across JosephRock’s article in 1989 and began to wonder the “secrets” that remained on distant mountaintops. A year later,I visited Lijiang in Yunnan Province for the first time. There, I was deeply touched by the allure of the snowy
peaks and by the aspects of traditional culture that the local Naxi people had managed to preserve. In theYulong Naxi Autonoomous County, the sacred Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (“Yulong Xueshan” in Chinese or“Satseto” in Naxi language) dazzled white and silver against the sky.

Yaks descending from Meila Shan Pass (5018m), Sichuan-Tibet Highway in late October
3In a 2018 talk at the University of Sydney, Kyinzom Dhougue stated that Tibetan “nomads are
the stewards of the lands” and “at the forefront of climate change”. They face the impacts oflosing their grasslands and traditional way of life amid the effects of industrial development,mining, hydropower projects, some government conservation initiatives, and climate change.

Qungmo Kangri 7048m east face viewed at Xugu La 5300m, Nyainqentanglha West(Qungmo Kangri was first climbed by a Chinese Korean team in 1996. Many of the peaks in thesurrounding area remain unclimbed)
I still regret that I had no chance to climb in this massif. Only one team had made a recorded ascent of its
highest point,5596-meter Shanzidou. In the American Alpine Journal Eric S. Perlman, who summited withPhil Peralta-Ramos in 1987, recalled struggling through thick bamboo forests and up “snow-splatteredlimestone headwalls”, where axes broke through layers of ice too fragile for any protection. Clouds enveloped
them near the top, and they never saw the view. To me, the peaks appeared like a galaxy, containing nebulous
worlds of untouched stone and snow. I thought about all the intricate corners where no one had set foot―andthen I realized that this was only one mysterious range among many.
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This encounter was the beginning of my odysseys through less-frequented mountains of China and Tibet,
journeys that would continue for thirty years. As I traveled beyond Yunnan and Sichuan and into eastern
Tibet. I realized that Joseph Rock’ words still resonated with me: there were, indeed, many “secrets” from themaps―including innumerable unclimbed 6000-meter peaks in the Gorge Country of Yunnan and in theregions of Kangri Garpo and Nyainqentanglha East.
Many of these summits were then scarcely known to the international climbing community. Since
photography was my hoppy, I decided to take pictures of the mountains, so I could introduce them to alpinists
around the world. In 2016, when I published my book, East of the Himalaya, I listed some fifty untrodden
peaks along the border between China and Bhutan, twenty-five along the McMahon Line between Tibet andIndia, ten in Goikarla Rigyu and south of the Yarlung Tsangpo, two hundred in the Nyainqentanglha Eastregion, forty in Kangri Garpo, twenty in the Gorge Country, ten in the West Sichuan highlands and forty inthe Tanggula Shan.

“I have never had any sponsors or financiers. This has allowed me a free hand, but not always made it easy
publish my work. My journeys of discovery through eastern Tibet have provided me with a second life afterretirement. While I am way too old to climb all these untouched peaks…...I see myself more as s source forother mountaineers. I provided information, maps, photos and knowledge freely to anyone interested in theregion.” ―Tamotsu Nakamura, Post Magazine

Unclimbed Tiba Kangri 6846m west face west of Namcha Barwa 7782m
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Buddhist monk at the Litang Monastery creates traditional sand mandara with the aid of a chakpur,a narrow metal funnel filled with sand.

Gyala Peri 7294m, north face: First climbed by Himalayan Association of Japan via south ridge in 19866

Unclimbed west face of Namcha Barwa 7782m, a peak first climbed by a Japanese Chinese team in 1992.

The south face of unclimbed Gongyada 6423m above the Lhagu Glacier in Kangri Garpo East7

Nyainqentanglha East, showing an unclimbed 6000-meter peak. In East of the Himalaya, Nakamura wrote:“Once off the beaten tracks, you will come across unfrequented stunning peaks and magnificent glaciers,”
particularly in “the central part north of the upper Yi’ong Tsangpo in Nyainqentanglha Esst.” Nonetheless,he added, many peaks in Tibet and nearby borderlands “are not opened to foreigners and not easy to approach
because of geopolitical backgrounds.” Other summits are closed for spiritual reasons. He recalls, “Myexperiences overseas during a quarter century---drove me to introduce such fascinating peaks to theinternational mountaineering community.”At the same time, these regions are transforming rapidly. In Tibet the change is taking place even faster thanI’d imagined. New department store and shopping malls crowd the holy city of Lhasa. Potala Palace is lightedup. Many of buildings have been torn down as the Chinese government modernizes the city. Throughout thecountryside, the network of highways and railways grows ever more extensive. With the rise of Chinese
tourism, hotels spring up in scenic towns. Old frontier no longer exist―at least in the way that I’d imagined
them as a young man.
In the autumn of 2019, I decided to return to the mountain range of Kangri Garpo, a place still hardly known
outside of the region although tourism development is now about to begin. Here, the summits stretch about
280 kilometers from northwest to southwest, starting east of 7782-meter Namcha Barwa and the Great
Tsangpo Bend, one of the most formidable canyons in the world, and extending to the mountain chain of8

Baxoila Lin and the western end of the Hengduan Mountains. Some forty 6000-meter peaks and many 5000meter mountains soar into the sky. Almost all these peaks are unclimbed.
By then, I was eighty-four years old. Professor Kazuo Kakihara, who would join me, had turned seventy-one.
Our Tibetan guide Awang (Kedup Geltsen) was a young forty-one. Awang has been my most reliable
expedition partner since 2009. He was a former monk who learned English and who has begun operating ashop near the Potala Palace. The best navigator I know, he is intimately familiar with all regions of Tibet.
Our Tibetan driver on this trip, Ge Nei, age forty, also knew the road conditions thoroughly. We were fortunate
to have their help.
Year by year, government control over foreign visitors has become stricter in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
It took us three months to get permits, after applying to the Tourist Bureau, Public Security Bureau (PSB).
Legal Department, Army and Border Police. Even so, we encountered many checkpoints among our journey.
But a six-kilometer tunnel now leads under the most dangerous landslide of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway
between Tongmai and Bomi, and we passed through quickly.
An unclimbed 6000-meter peak of Nyainqentanglha East range shimmered above an old village on the banksof the Parlung Tsangpo and Yi’ong Tsangpo rivers, suggesting mysteries on the edge of the roads and towns.
Through a mist of falling rain and snow, the autumn leaves shone in red and yellow hues. On October 26, wearrived at Midoi, now a popular destination for Chinese tourists. High above the 6525-meter mountain ofGemsong still awaited a first ascent. In white summit rower appeared sharp and delicate as a leaf above theglaciers. Our objective, however, was not to climb, but to have a look at the state of ice. We continued on toRawu, the last town where the PSB allowed us to lodge.

9Unclimbed Gemsong 6525m north face and Midoi Glacier viewed from Parlung Tsangpo
At daybreak, we hurried to the Lhagu Glacier. “How much has this glacier been receding in ten years?” Thisquestion was a matter of serious concern to us. Indeed, the ice appeared to have shrunk and grown thinner,and a sense of sorrow weighed on us. When I compared my photos from 1999 and 2019, the borders of theLhagu Glacier had drawn back hundreds of meters. An environmental science professor, Mauri Pelto , later
shared his observation that the glacier had retreated 1.2 kilometers since 2001. Local Tibetan inhabitants
had also noticed the transformation.

“----We live on the threshold of the hot planet,
The Conquest of nature so often anticipatedor celebrated over the previous two hundredyears appears to be highly ambivalent.”―
Peter H. Hansen, The Summits of Modern Man
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North face of Gyala Peri 7294m viewed from near confluence of Parlung and Yi’ong Tsangpo
On the road from Rawu to high pass of the Dema La 4900 meters, I looked into a magnificent panorama of
the heart of Kangri Garpo East. The Indian pundit Kishen Signh (so called A-K) was the first foreigner totraverse the Kangri Garpo Range, back in 1882, during a secret mapmaking mission, when the borders ofTibet were still closed to outside visitors. So much shifted, since the turn of the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies, in the lives of nearby residents: from the turmoil of invasions and political change to the impacts
of industrialization and modern climate crisis.
Today, the snows and glaciers will glow in white and blue. But their boundaries seem like the glimmering
margins of some transcendent world, one that is growing ever smaller and more precarious. Where I once
stood entranced by the glories of unclimbed heights, now I worry more and more about the melting of the ice
and uncertainties of the earth’ future.
I am eighty-five years old, but I would like to continue my journeys to the borderlands for at least a few years
more. In the time remaining to us all, there is still so much felt to see.

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Dema La pass 4900m on a road from Rawu to Zayul

Panorama viewed from a road: Rawu~Demala pass, east face
Unclimbed Ruoni 6882m highest peak of Kangri Garpo range (left), climbed Lopchi 6805m (right)
12Unclimbed Ruoni 6882m E face, Highest peak of Kangri Garpo range

Lopchin 6808m E face, 2nd highest in Kangri Garpo, climbed by Kobe Univ. in 200913

Unnamed 6280m east face, east of Ruoni, Kangri Garpo

Dojitsenza 5662m east face, Kangri Garpo East

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(above) Gheni 6150m (below) Yuhe 6327m N face, Kangri Garpo eastern end
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Historical Monastery, Shugden Gompa (reconstructed)
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Delpola III 6140m north face, Kangri Garpo

Dinpernalason 6135m south face, Nyainqentanghla East17

Unclimbed Tiba Kangri 6846m west face, west of Namcha Barwa 7782m

Lake Basong Tso in autumn
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Lhasa city: (above) Lighted up Potala Palace (below) Modern shopping mall19