Mukut Himal and Churen Himal. The Nihon University Expedition started from Pokhara on April 11 for the northwest of Dhaulagiri. We planned for about 100 days, using successively porters, mules and yaks for transport. The party consisted of four members, S. Ishizaka, Z. Hirayama, Y. Kumagai and T. Miyahara, five Sherpas under the sirdar Ang Temba, and a Nepali liaison officer, B. Roka. We arrived in Tukuche after one week. Until April 19 we acclimatized at Dambush Pass and Hidden Valley and climbed Dambush Peak (19,935 feet) ; then we made three more camps near the Mukut Himal. Hirayama, Miyahara and I and two Sherpas, Ang Temba and Ang Dawa, reached the highest point of the Mukut Himal, Hangde (6600 meters or 21,654 feet by our calculations) on May 8. As we returned, we climbed three other peaks of 6000 meters (one of them a second ascent for it had been climbed by the American expedition in 1959). (See AAJ 1961, 12:2, pp. 249–262. This

last peak is “Tongu Peak” ca. 20,500 feet.—Editor.) The two first ascents were of P6265 (20,554 feet), three miles east of Tongu on May 10 by Miyahara and me and of P6025 (19,767 feet), one mile northeast of Dambush Peak, on May 14 by Hirayama, Kumagai and Ang Dawa. On May 15 we came back to Tukuche and prepared to follow the coarse of the Kali Gandaki and Kehalungpa rivers. We reached the high pass (Mu La, 18,537 feet) but found the snow so deep that even the yaks could not cross. That day, May 26, we left all our baggage there and crossed to Mukutgaon to make arrangements for new yaks. After five days we reached Kakkotgaon in the Barbung Khola to climb in the Churen Himal. After three days we set up an advance camp at 15,000 feet. We made two more camps but came down after reconnaissance because of monsoon storms and shortage of time. There Hirayama and Ang Temba climbed Kantokal (ca. 21,325 feet), just north of Putha Hiunchuli on June 7. The return journey began on June 10. We crossed the Jang-La-Bhanjyang pass (14,272 feet) and reached Pokhara via Dhorpatan on July 1.

Shojiro Ishizaka, Nihon University Alpine Club