Hengduan Range, Taniantawen Shan, exploration. In 2007 Tamotsu “Tom” Nakamura trekked along the Yu Qu Valley, photographing, to the west, the unknown Guezong massif and mountains to its south, and to the east, the northern part of the Nu Shan/Taniantawen Shan with its beautiful but little known peaks of Damyon (6,324m) and Dungri Garpo (6,090m). This trek was covered in detail in AAJ 2008. Nakamura’s quest for late autumn 2008 was to travel along the Mekong River and examine the eastern aspects of Damyon and Dungri Garpo before attempting to find access to Dungri Garpo from the south. Beginning from the Yunnan city of Zhongdian (Shangri La), Nakamura and his group traveled north along the Yunnan-Tibet Highway to Markam, then west on the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, and finally south-southeast up the Yu Qu Valley until it was possible to ascend north toward the base of Dungri Garpo. Reversing the route to the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, the group then followed it east to Litang, passing Xiashe (5,833m) to the north, and Genyen (6,204m) to the south, before journeying south to Daocheng county in order to visit the famous holy peaks of Xiannairi (6,032m), Yangmaiyong (Jam- beyang, 5,958m), and Xiaruoduo (Chanadordje, 5,958m), all unclimbed (but attempted) but now off limits to climbers. A collection of photographs of these mountains, some of which are reproduced here, appear in Alpine Briefs Issue 2-January 2009.

From notes provided by Tamotsu Nakamura, Editor, Japanese Alpine News