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Appalachia {Summer/Fall 2012 ; Alpina p124ー126} -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scholarly Mountaineering -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The nearly complete suspension of exploratory mountaineering in eastern Tibet could not stop the scholarly elucidation of the sometimes-confused maze of hundreds of little-known mountains there. Tatsuo (Tim) Inoue of the Alpine Club of Kobe University (ACKU) is no armchair mountaineer. He led the expedition that made the first ascent of any peak in the extensive Kangri Garpo range in 2009. He now has produced a major rationalization of the hundreds of mountains in the range, particularly the 6,000m peaks.
Kangri Garpo stretches 280 km in a roughly NW to SE line from Tongmai to Zayul near the Sichuan border. The only known ascent is the 2009 climb of Lopchin Feng (6,8o5 m), the second highest summit in the range (see the account in Alpina, Appalachia, Summer/Fall 2011, LXII no.2, page 121).
Until now, most of the mountains were unnamed as well as being unclimbed and had uncertain locations and elevations. Inoue has produced a document (Japanese Alpine News, Volume 12, pages 104-131) that goes far toward filling this gap. It might be thought that in these times of Google Earth and satellite technology, his task would be a simple one, but that proved untrue. Inoue used Google Maps, Google Earth, and a whole alphabet soup of other technologies-Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), and all the rest-as well as old Soviet maps and Chinese People's Liberation Army maps. Unfortunately, he had no access to the most recent Chinese versions.
The process was a painstaking effort to establish the elevation and location of hundreds of predominantly remote and unexplored mountains attach an unambiguous identifier (Inoue uses a "KG number") and, using a whole library of images, relate the KG number to previous names and map locations when they exist. For this effort, Inoue amassed images taken by four ACKU expeditions and by a long list of mostly Japanese explorers-the list headed, of course, by Tamotsu Nakamura. The library incorporates a single photo taken in 1933 by Frank Kingdon-Ward (By amazing skill or luck, Kingdon-Ward chose to photograph Ruoni, the highest peak in the entire 280 km range.)
Inoue observes,
"The altitude data extracted from ASTER and Google Earth indicate lower height
numbers on the sharp or thin summit structure peaks than . . . actual and
little lower numbers on massive or round shape peaks." He therefore
assumes that "all data extracted from the satellite survey indicate lower
than [actual elevation.] " Some may debate this conclusion, but anyone who
compares Himalayan Google Earth images with good photos of the same peaks will
notice the apparent flattening effect.
Inoue’s principal product is a table of 47 Kangri Garpo peaks 6,000 m or more high (the previous estimate for the number of Kangri Garpo 6,000ers was 3o.) The table lists each peak's KG number, position in degrees, minutes, and seconds, the best elevation estimate, and names, if any. Most mountaineers have limited interest in mountains "that no one has ever heard of," a fortiori in those of unknown position and height. Thus, the table win probably set the agenda for climbs in the Kangri Garpo for the foreseeable future.
Tatsuo "Tim" Inoue, using available satellite and other data, established elevations for hundreds remote, unexplored mountains in the Kangri Garpo Range of Tibet. This illustration is an example of his work. showing three 6,000-meter peaks in the Delupola group of peaks. Inoue's -KG" labels were his own invention. TAMOTSU NAKIIMURA
--- Issued by Jeffery Parrette, Alpina Editor
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scholarly Mountaineering (学究的登山) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 東チベットの探検登山は現在ほぼ完全にストップされているが、そこにある何百ものほとんど知られていない山々の時として混乱した山脈地形の学究的な解明そのものを止めることはきませんでした。神戸大学アルパインクラブ(ACKU)の井上達男(ティム)は、インドアクライマ−(armchair mountaineer)ではありません。彼は、2009年に広大なKangri Garpo山群の中で初登頂を成し遂げた遠征隊長でした。今日、彼は何百もピ−クが存在する山群の、特に主な6,000m峰の山座同定を実施しました。
この結論については議論する人もいますが、しかし、ヒマラヤ山脈のグーグル・アース・イメージを同じピークのよい写真と比較する人は誰でも、明白な平滑化結果に気づくでしょう。
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