Southwestern ChinaSyn Qing Feng or Buka Daban. The members of our expedition were
Toshiaki Sakaue, Takashi M asuda, Kazuyoshi N akata, Akira Hayashimoto, Yoichiro Shirota and I as leader. On May 4, we placed Base Camp at 4900 m eters and on M ay 7, Advance Base at 5600 meters on the plateau below Syn Qing X V III, avoiding séracs and crevasses along the glacier. A fter a snowstorm, on May 12 we traversed the eastern slope of Syn Qing XVIII and set up Camp I at 6000 meters at the head o f the glacier before being forced back to Base by another snow storm . On May 17, M asuda, Hayashimoto and Shirota finally placed Camp II at 6350 m eters, and placed fixed ropes to 6500 meters on Syn Qing II’s west ridge. Shirota had to drop out because of frostbite. On May 18, M asuda and Hayashim oto clim bed a knife-edge which rose up to 60° and reached the sum mit (6860 m eters, 22,507 feet). The mountain lies on the border o f Q inghai and Xinjiang provinces. It is a compact group of some 20 peaks. It was attem pted by Japanese in 1988 and Syn Xing II was tried by A mericans. (.AAJ, 1989, pages 289-290.) The name is also transliterated as Xin Qing Feng. Its name in M ongolian is Buka Daban.
T a d a s h i F u k u y a m a , H imalayan Association o f Japan