Kanchenjunga and Yalungkang. Our 22-man expedition reached Base Camp on the Yalung Glacier at 18,000 feet on March 16. We started up the British first-ascent route of 1955 and established Camps I, II and III (Advance Base) at 20,175, 21,150 and 23,960 feet on March 22, 25 and 31 respectively. The latter was on the Great Shelf. The Kanchenjunga party continued up the British route and established Camp IV at 25,750 feet on April 23 and Camp V at 27,225 feet on April 29. The Yalungkang party placed Camps IV and V at 25,750 and 27,050 feet on April 20 and 29 on the Austrian route of 1975. The original plan had been for the Kanchenjunga party to traverse to Yalungkang while the Yalungkang party climbed the ridge to the main peak of Kanchenjunga. On May 9 Noburo Yamada, Kazumi Fujikura, Shigeru Suzuki, Akinori Hosaka, Kunio Kataoka and Sherpa Nima Temba reached the main summit of Kanchenjunga (8598 meters, 28,208 feet) at 12:30 after 8½ hours of climbing. Meanwhile Yoshio Ogata, Hiroshi Yashima, Fuji Tsunoda, Kuniaki Yagihara and Kazuo Tobita climbed with nearly identical times to the summit of Yalungkang (8420 meters, 27,625 feet). Deep snow had made the ascent very arduous and it was decided not to try the 2½-km traverse between the peaks in either direction. We set poles on each peak for surveying, one seven meters to the left of the true summit of Kanchenjunga and the other on the very peak of Yalungkang. Other members of the expedition were vice-leader Kaoru Kikuchi, Makihiro Wakao, Takashi Sakuma, Ya Watanabe, Shin Komatsu, Jisaburo Suzuki, Toshimasa Tanioka, Shigeru Fukuyama, Yoshiharu Nikai, Yasuji Kato, Dr. Ryoko Kato and I as leader.

Kin’ichi Yamamori, Himalayan Association of Japan