Bukadaban Feng
Rising from the immense high-altitude wilderness of western China, Bukadaban Feng is one of the great remote summits of the Kunlun Mountains. The heavily glaciated mountain reaches 6,860 meters (22,507 feet) on the boundary between Qinghai and Xinjiang, making it the highest point in Qinghai Province.
Bukadaban Feng is also an ultra-prominent peak, with more than 1,900 meters of topographic prominence. Its surroundings belong to the vast Hoh Xil landscape, a region of alpine steppe, glaciers, lakes, permafrost, and extraordinary wildlife that remains among the least densely inhabited parts of Asia.
⚡ Fast Facts
| Fact | Details |
|---|---|
| Country | China |
| Provinces/Regions | Qinghai / Xinjiang |
| Mountain Range | Kunlun Mountains |
| Subrange | Arka Tagh |
| Elevation | 6,860 meters / 22,507 feet |
| Prominence | 1,922 meters / 6,306 feet |
| Isolation | 277.77 kilometers / 172.6 miles |
| Nearest Higher Neighbor (NHN) | Ulugh Muztagh |
| Coordinates | 36.024° N, 90.866° E |
| Highest Point Of | Qinghai Province |
| Classification | Ultra-prominent peak |
| First Ascent | May 18, 1992 |
| First Ascensionists | Takashi Masuda and Akira Hayashimoto |
| Alternate Names | Buka Daban Feng, Syn Qing Feng, Xinqing Feng, Bokalik Tagh |
Bukadaban Feng’s nearest higher named summit is Ulugh Muztagh, another enormous Kunlun peak to the west. Peakbagger calculates Bukadaban Feng’s true isolation—the distance to the nearest higher terrain—at about 277.77 kilometers.
🏔️ A Giant of the Central Kunlun
Bukadaban Feng stands in the central portion of the sprawling Kunlun Mountains, one of the great mountain systems forming the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau.
The peak lies near the boundary between Ruoqiang County in Xinjiang and Qinghai Province. Unlike mountains rising abruptly from low valleys, Bukadaban Feng begins from a landscape that is already extraordinarily high. The surrounding plateau commonly lies above 4,500 meters.
This produces a landscape of enormous scale but relatively few signs of human settlement. Broad gravel plains, high lakes, frozen valleys, glaciers, and snow-covered mountains extend across the horizon.
Bukadaban Feng is one of the highest summits in the entire Kunlun system and ranks among the standout peaks featured in the Highest Peaks of the Kunlun Mountains.
📏 The Highest Mountain in Qinghai
At 6,860 meters, Bukadaban Feng is generally recognized as the highest point of Qinghai Province.
That distinction is particularly impressive because Qinghai contains an enormous portion of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau and numerous mountains exceeding 6,000 meters.
Other major Qinghai summits include Yuzhu Peak and Geladandong, but Bukadaban Feng rises higher than either.
Its prominence of approximately 1,922 meters means that Bukadaban Feng is also an ultra, the mountaineering term for a summit with at least 1,500 meters of topographic prominence.
📐 A Mountain That Was Once Thought Much Higher
Bukadaban Feng shares an unusual historical connection with nearby Ulugh Muztagh: both mountains appeared on older maps with dramatically exaggerated elevations.
Bukadaban Feng was once assigned a height of roughly 7,720 meters (25,328 feet).
If that figure had been correct, the mountain would have ranked among the highest peaks outside the Himalaya and Karakoram.
Modern surveys and mapping instead place the summit at approximately 6,860 meters, more than 850 meters below the old figure.
The discrepancy illustrates just how difficult it was to survey the extremely remote interior of the Tibetan Plateau before modern satellite mapping and precise geodetic measurements became available.
🧊 A Vast Glaciated Massif
Bukadaban Feng is not merely an isolated pointed summit. It belongs to a compact group of approximately 20 high peaks, many connected by glaciers and elevated ridges.
Glaciers flow from the massif into surrounding valleys, their surfaces broken by crevasses, séracs, and icefalls.
During the successful 1992 expedition, climbers established an advanced base camp at about 5,600 meters on a plateau beneath the peaks. Reaching the climbing route required navigating glacier terrain while avoiding séracs and crevasses.
The combination of extreme altitude and extensive ice makes Bukadaban Feng a serious mountaineering objective even before its exceptional remoteness is considered.
🗺️ The Hoh Xil Wilderness
Bukadaban Feng is associated with Hoh Xil, one of the most remarkable wilderness landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau.
Known in Chinese as Kekexili, Hoh Xil contains vast alpine mountains, grasslands, lakes, wetlands, glaciers, and permafrost at elevations mostly above 4,500 meters.
Part of the region was inscribed as the Qinghai Hoh Xil UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017 because of its extraordinary natural landscapes and biological importance. UNESCO describes the region as an exceptionally high and largely undeveloped plateau ecosystem.
The isolation surrounding Bukadaban Feng is therefore not simply a matter of distance from cities. The mountain occupies one of the largest expanses of high-altitude wilderness remaining in Eurasia.
🐃 What Does Bukadaban Feng Mean?
Bukadaban Feng appears under several names and transliterations.
These include:
- Buka Daban Feng
- Syn Qing Feng
- Xinqing Feng
- Bokalik Tagh
- 布喀达坂峰
The name Buka Daban has been translated in various sources as referring to a bison or wild ox.
This is particularly fitting for a landscape still associated with the wild yak, one of the great large mammals of the Tibetan Plateau.
🐾 Wildlife of Hoh Xil
The wider Hoh Xil region supports an extraordinary community of animals adapted to extreme cold, altitude, and open terrain.
Among its best-known species are:
- Tibetan antelope
- Wild yak
- Tibetan wild ass, or kiang
- Tibetan gazelle
- Wolf
- Brown bear
UNESCO reports that Hoh Xil contains important migration and calving habitat for Tibetan antelope and supports a substantial proportion of the world’s remaining wild yak population.
These animals survive in an environment where winter temperatures can become severe and vegetation is limited largely to alpine grasslands, meadows, and other cold-adapted plant communities.
🧗 Early Attempts on Bukadaban Feng
Bukadaban Feng remained outside the normal world of international mountaineering until comparatively late in the 20th century.
An American expedition traveled to the Syn Qing Feng massif in 1988, requiring a multi-day journey from Beijing to Xining and Golmud before continuing over Kunlun Pass and eventually traveling off-road into the mountains.
The Americans attempted another summit within the massif while a Japanese expedition held permission for the main 6,860-meter peak.
The Japanese team did not reach Bukadaban Feng that season but successfully climbed Syn Qing Feng XVIII, a 6,237-meter summit, on August 18, 1988.
The expeditions demonstrated just how complicated mountaineering logistics could be in this isolated corner of China.
🏆 First Ascent in 1992
The first successful climb of Bukadaban Feng came four years later.
A Japanese expedition led by Tadashi Fukuyama reached the mountain in May 1992. The team included Toshiaki Sakaue, Takashi Masuda, Kazuyoshi Nakata, Akira Hayashimoto, and Yoichiro Shirota.
Base Camp was established at approximately 4,900 meters on May 4, followed by an advanced camp at roughly 5,600 meters.
Storms repeatedly interrupted progress.
By May 17, climbers had established Camp II at approximately 6,350 meters and fixed ropes higher on the mountain. Shirota was forced to withdraw because of frostbite.
On May 18, 1992, Takashi Masuda and Akira Hayashimoto continued upward. They climbed a knife-edge ridge with slopes reaching roughly 60 degrees before successfully reaching the 6,860-meter summit.
❄️ Mountaineering Conditions
Bukadaban Feng presents nearly every challenge associated with high-altitude expedition climbing.
Climbers must contend with:
- Extreme altitude
- Glaciers and crevasses
- Séracs
- Steep snow and ice
- Knife-edge ridges
- Severe cold
- Powerful winds
- Sudden snowstorms
- Very limited outside assistance
The 1992 expedition was repeatedly delayed by snowstorms, while frostbite forced one summit-team member to abandon the final climb.
At this elevation, climbers also face the effects of reduced oxygen well before reaching the summit.
🚙 The Challenge Begins Before the Climb
For most famous high mountains, reaching base camp involves following a known trekking route or established road system.
Bukadaban Feng is different.
Historical expeditions required days of vehicle travel across the Tibetan Plateau after reaching the nearest major transport centers. The 1988 American expedition traveled by train to Xining, continued to Golmud, crossed Kunlun Pass, and then spent several more days driving into remote terrain before reaching the massif.
Road conditions and regional access have changed since those expeditions, but Bukadaban Feng remains an exceptionally remote mountain rather than a conventional trekking destination.
Any modern expedition would require considerable logistical planning as well as the appropriate Chinese permits and local authorization.
🌬️ Climate at Extreme Altitude
The Hoh Xil plateau combines great elevation with a severe continental climate.
UNESCO notes that much of the protected landscape lies above 4,500 meters and experiences sub-zero average temperatures throughout the year.
Bukadaban Feng rises another 2,000 meters above much of that already elevated landscape.
The mountain consequently experiences persistent snow and ice, strong winds, intense solar radiation, low oxygen levels, and rapidly changing weather.
Its glaciers store precipitation that falls primarily as snow at high elevations and help feed streams, wetlands, and lake systems across the surrounding plateau.
🌏 Geology and the Tibetan Plateau
Bukadaban Feng forms part of the Kunlun mountain system along the northern side of the Tibetan Plateau.
This is one of Earth’s great zones of continental deformation, ultimately associated with the ongoing collision between India and Eurasia.
Research across the Kunlun region shows a long history of uplift, crustal shortening, strike-slip faulting, glaciation, erosion, and changes in surrounding high-altitude basins. The mountains and nearby Qaidam Basin preserve extensive evidence of how tectonics and climate have interacted to shape northern Tibet.
Bukadaban Feng’s glaciers are therefore only the latest chapter in a geological story extending millions of years into the past.
🏔️ Bukadaban Feng and Ulugh Muztagh
Bukadaban Feng is closely associated geographically with Ulugh Muztagh.
Ulugh Muztagh reaches approximately 6,973 meters, making it only 113 meters higher than Bukadaban Feng.
Both mountains are enormous, isolated Kunlun summits that were historically assigned substantially exaggerated elevations.
The similarity ends somewhat at their climbing histories. Ulugh Muztagh received its first confirmed ascent during the celebrated Chinese-American expedition of 1985, while Bukadaban Feng remained unclimbed until the Japanese ascent in 1992.
Together, the two mountains form one of the most fascinating pairs of remote high peaks in Central Asia.
🧭 Why Bukadaban Feng Is So Little Known
Bukadaban Feng would be a famous mountain almost anywhere else.
It exceeds 22,500 feet, is an ultra-prominent summit, forms the highest point of an enormous Chinese province, and rises amid some of the most dramatic wilderness on the Tibetan Plateau.
Yet it remains largely unknown outside specialist mountaineering and geographic circles.
Its obscurity is primarily a product of location.
There are no famous trekking villages at its base, no heavily traveled summit route, and no large tourism industry centered on the mountain. Even high-quality photographs of Bukadaban Feng are relatively uncommon compared with those of Himalayan peaks.
Its extreme isolation has preserved a sense of mystery that many more accessible high mountains have long since lost.
⭐ Why Bukadaban Feng Is Special
Bukadaban Feng deserves far more recognition than its relative obscurity suggests.
At 6,860 meters, it is one of the great peaks of the Kunlun Mountains, the highest point in Qinghai Province, and an ultra-prominent mountain rising almost 2,000 meters above its key saddle.
Its story includes erroneous early maps, remote exploration, failed expeditions, dangerous glacier travel, and a dramatic Japanese first ascent.
Beyond mountaineering, Bukadaban Feng rises within the extraordinary Hoh Xil landscape, where Tibetan antelope, wild yak, wolves, and other high-plateau wildlife still inhabit enormous stretches of open country.
For anyone fascinated by the world’s wildest and least familiar high mountains, Bukadaban Feng is one of the hidden giants of Asia.
🔗 Related Articles
📚 Sources
- Peakbagger — Bukadaban Feng
- American Alpine Club — Syn Qing Feng or Buka Daban
- American Alpine Club — Syn Qing Feng Attempt
- American Alpine Club — Syn Qing Feng XVIII
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Qinghai Hoh Xil
- U.S. Geological Survey — Late Quaternary Landscape Evolution in the Kunlun Mountains and Qaidam Basin
