Behind us stood the snowy faces of two beautiful peaks that we had become familiar with by now, approximately 5670 meters and 5833 meters (18,600' and 19,130'). Neither had ever been climbed. Of the hundreds of major summits in this corner of China between 5000 and 7500 meters (16,400'-24,600'), many have not been climbed. It was this unexplored nature of the climbing that brought us here in the first place.

Our trip started in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, a city of about 11 million people. Luckily the climbing season is September through November, and that coordinates perfectly with my work (and climbing) schedule which requires me to be in the Pacific Northwest from April to the end of September. I had learned of the climbing potential in Southwest China from an article in the American Alpine Journal, and for several months I had studied maps, e-mailed people all over the world who had been there, and learned some basic Mandarin Chinese from a self-teaching CD.

The first order of business in Chengdu, after sampling some of the local cuisine and bumbling through our first conversations in Chinese, was to purchase our food for the next 3 weeks in the mountains. If you have ever been in a Chinese grocery store, you know that this is no small task.

Soon we were on our way to the mountains, sitting on top of our eight giant duffle bags in the back of a bus packed full of Chinese tourists, certainly perpetuating the stereotype that Americans have to do everything BIG. Three weeks of food, four ropes, two full rock racks, pickets, screws, crampons, ice axes, tents, stoves, bags, books, maps and clothing for four people make packing light an impossibility.

After six hours of bumping down muddy roads past rice fields, lush lowland forests, then climbing up and over a 14,500' pass, we dropped back down into the 11,000' town of Rilong.

The geography of the region is incredibly diverse. Essentially these peaks are part of the Himalayan Range, and form the eastern-most ramparts of the Tibetan Plateau. The name of this north-to-south chain of mountains is the Hengduan Range which means "traverse cutting range". I guess the people who named the range thought of it as a wall blocking the traverse into Tibet. Going west from Chengdu, the Sichuan Basin starts at about 2000 feet and abruptly rises into a high rainforest capped by snowy peaks. As you move further west and closer the Tibetan Plateau, it becomes drier and the average elevation rises to about 14,000 feet in valley bottoms.

The biodiversity in SW China is unparalleled. Reportedly one quarter of all species of plants and animals found in all of China exist in a single national park located on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan! The last remaining wild habitat of both the Giant Panda and the Red Panda straddles the Hengduan Range. The number of bird species is staggering, and the variety ranges from tiny sparrows, to colorful songbirds, to the enormous Himalayan Griffins who kept a close eye on us while we climbed and explored. There are also more minority peoples and languages in Sichuan and Yunnan than all other provinces in China combined.

This biodiversity and formation of microclimates comes from the huge natural barriers between villages and regions, including immense mountains and three of the biggest rivers in the world which drain the glaciers of Tibet and spill down into China (the Yangste River), SE Asia (the Mekong River), and India (the Salween River). There is actually a place in northwest Yunnan where these three mighty rivers, which dump into three separate oceans, are separated from each other by two adjoining ridges of peaks.

Once in Rilong we took a couple of days to acclimatize and purchase last-minute food items and our all-important giant basecamp tarp. We also did a day hike up the Changping Gou ("Long Terrace Valley"). This 27 kilometer-long valley has an amazingly flat valley floor, a beautiful winding river, and 5000 to 6000 meter sheer granite peaks rising very sharply on both sides. This was our first glimpse of the peaks we had come to climb.

Our initial plan was to hire horses to carry our gear and then hike the 27 km to the end of the Changping Gou to attempt some of the many unclimbed granite peaks at the head of the valley. But after arriving and getting more information on the area, we found out that a new road had been built in the next valley over for Chinese tourists to drive up and view the giant peaks and granite towers. The convenience of driving to an alternative basecamp outweighed the attraction of using a more traditional approach to our original camp, so we jumped on a tourist bus with our ridiculous bags, much to the amusement of the locals, and headed up the Shuangqiao Gou ("Double Bridge Valley").

Our choice of a basecamp was pretty easy. By the time we had driven all the way to the end of the one-way road, we had passed several nice places next to the river and close to some interesting peaks. But the clincher was a spot where a local Tibetan family that had put a small stand next to the road selling grilled yak meat, goat meat, and potatoes. So when the driver turned around to make his return trip down valley, we stayed on board until we reached that culinary hot spot. He let us out in the pouring rain with our duffle bags and helped pile everything up in the field next to the bus. When the bus drove away the only sounds were the patter of rain and the grunts of the surrounding herds of yaks, which was a sign of what was to come.

We set up our camp that day and got our first visitor who turned out to be our greatest ally in the coming days. Mr. Tsao was a friendly and hearty Tibetan whose family had lived in this valley for generations. Our first attempts at a conversation in Mandarin went OK with the learning of names, ages, and other details about each other.

Then Mr. Tsao went right into an excited monologue with great emphasis on the Mandarin words for "danger," "at night," and "when sleeping". He put his fingers above his ears like horns and repeated "danger at night" and talked about "yaks lacking salt". After more back and forth we could only assume that the yaks will try to come into our camp at night while we are sleeping looking for salt and that it might be dangerous. We thanked him profusely and as he walked away he kept saying "danger" with his fingers above his ears. It was dusk.

After making dinner with one eye over our shoulder watching the yaks lazily chomping grass nearby, we decided to make a fence. With our limited supplies of string and sticks, we made a crude fence "look alike" that we thought the yaks might mistake as something that they couldn't just step over or through to access the gourmet dinner of a lifetime. As the sun went down the yaks seemed to get closer and closer. It seemed like they had an eye on us as well.

It had been a long day and we were ready for bed the minute it got dark, so we rinsed dishes, brushed our teeth and AAAHHHH THERE'S TWO HUGE EYES!!! A yak was attempting to breech the shields! Unfortunately, there are times when personal safety comes before kindness to our fellow creatures so we pelted it with rocks until it ran back to the herd that was close . . . too close for comfort. So we yelled and screamed and threw more rocks until they ran ran a few feet away and forgot why they were running and stopped and started chomping grass again. With heads throbbing from the thin air at 12,500 ft, and hearts pumping from the adrenaline from being face to face with a 2000 pound unfamiliar nocturnal animal, we turned back to our little tents and twig fence for a largely sleepless night of awakening to the slightest sounds, not to mention the utter dread of getting up to pee.

We soon discovered that we were in an unexpected weather pattern in which every night we received rain or snow accompanied by thunder. The days were clear and sunny, and we filled them with scouting for routes, and approaches and doing acclimatization day hikes. On one of our day hikes we decided to walk to the head of the valley to find a 4700-meter pass with, what looked like on the map, several 5000-meter unclimbed peaks. Sure enough, we found a beautiful meadow surrounded by several moderate rock peaks. This is what we had been looking for to warm up on! The next day we were packing up basecamp to establish a highcamp in the head of the valley.

After a big meal of Mr. Tsao's potatoes, butter tea, and grilled yak meat (poetic justice), and paying him to store extra duffles, we flagged the daily tourist bus for a ride to the end of the road. Unfortunately at this point our trip was dealt a big blow; a prior medical condition necessitated that Erik, our strongest climber, take the next bus back to Chengdu for immediate attention. We hurriedly separated gear and made a plan of meeting up again and rode away in the bus, staring out the back window to get a last look at Erik as he pointed and mimed. We knew that making his way back down the valley to Rilong and then back to Chengdu for a visit to a Chinese hospital had the potential for filling part of an adventure novel in and of itself, but he assured us he was totally up to the task on his own.

With this heavy on our minds, Misty, Anitra, and I hiked up to our highpoint of the prior day and made camp next to a little stream. We had become more used to the presence of yaks and felt no need to make a fence, which is good because there were no materials to make one. We bedded down just below the aptly named Niuxim Shan ("Yak Heart Peak").

Weeks later, we found out that Niuxim Shan had been climbed the year before by a Chinese team that spent 2 seasons, lots of fixed ropes and plenty of bolts to climb the West Face. But as far as we knew at the time, it was a virgin peak and a wonderful first climb of the expedition. The north face appeared to have some scrambling up a ramp system followed by several pitches of technical rock climbing to the summit ridge. This was our first objective.

At 4:00am the next morning (October 1 and Anitra's birthday), this is what we woke up to:

Eight inches of new snow gave us the excuse to sleep in a bit, and we spent the day hiking up to a high pass about 14,800 feet where we built a cairn and dubbed it Birthday Pass. An eerie view onto the North Face of Peak 5492 was the prize for the day.

The next two days saw new snow every night with the consistent clearing trend during the afternoon. On the fourth day, we decided to attempt the peak in the conditions at hand rather than waiting for more melt. An early start with 2000 feet of 3rd class scrambling covered with snow brought us to the crux pitch of probably 5.8 rock covered in snow. After lots of digging and several tries to overcome the step, without crampons or axes (we had anticipated dry rock and left our snow and ice equipment with Mr. Tsao), we decided to bail about 300 feet below the summit.

We decided to pack up and go back to Rilong, regroup, find Erik and rethink out plan. We were wondering why this so-called "dry season" was turning out so wet. We found a local hotel owner who spoke pretty good English and he said that it was the rainiest Autumn they had had in 40 years. Everyone in town was talking about it. So we hopped a bus, met Erik in Chengdu, and rested a few days to lick our wounds.

While Erik had been in Chengdu recuperating, he had lots of time for table talk and map gazing, and by the time we reached him, he had some good ideas for new objectives. We ultimately decided to try to find a place further west. We had heard of a Japanese Expedition in 2001 and an American expedition in 2003 visiting the Jarjinjabo Massif situated near the border with Tibet.

So we packed up again and over the next week made our way to the western edge of the Sichuan Province, deep into Tibetan culture. On the way we had to stop in Kangding to get our visas extended and, with a three-day delay with the authorities, we made a side trip to scout the Minya Konka Mountain Range, where I hope to spend more time when I return this Autumn 2005. Using just two days, we had time to hike to a mountain hut, spend the night, and walk around on an enormous glacier, before returning to Kangding to get our visas. I'm very excited about the idea of returning for ascents of some of the unclimbed satellite peaks of this 7500-meter giant, the tallest mountain in SW China.

The last point on the map that was covered by our guidebook was the wild west town of Litang. We had no idea how we would cover the rest of the 160km of backroads to get to the mountains. Since our original plan didn't include travel to this area, we hadn't worked out the details of getting to and from such a remote location. We had no idea how remote it was going to be until we got there.

I spent the first day flagging down 4x4 jeeps, pointing to the area on the map that we wanted to visit. Each time I got the point across, the driver would just shake his head and say "bad road." One fellow who had been watching me for awhile crossed the street and offered to drive us for an exorbitant fee. I gasped and continued my quest. He followed me all day, obviously wanting the work. Showing his resolve, he went to get his big jeep and make a drive by. Eventually we succumbed to his offer, recognizing he was our only choice. As I tried bartering him lower without success, he continually pointed to his wheels and shocks making a breaking motion as if to say the fee would help cover his broken vehicle upon his return.

We packed up and left with our new friend, Ja Ba, the next morning. The road started out pretty nice as we drove further east toward the "forbidden" border with Tibet. Abruptly, however, the road turned into dirt with ruts 3 feet deep, and it continued this way for the next 5 hours. We soon realized why he was charging so much and decided that his price had been a bargain.

Just as we thought we were certainly lost (Ja Ba had to ask directions about 10 times along the way) the view of the Jarjinjabo Massif came into view. It was a stunning granite massif jutting out of a beautiful green valley. We drove higher toward the massif and through a forest to an ancient Monastery. Two monks came out to greet us and we later found out they were the abbot and village teacher. They led us in to the 600 year old walled structure that was to be our home for the next twelve days. As Ja Ba drove away with instructions when to come pick us up (and with half of the return pickup fee!), we realized that he was the sole human on earth who knew where we were. At his whim, we could be wintering over here. The nearest village was 40km away and public transportation was a lot further.

After settling in, we decided to scout behind the massif to see if there were any peaks of interest to climb. We wound through prayer flags and game trails to find some very nice looking peaks. One in particular was about 17,000 feet high and had a beautiful south facing wall about 800 to 1000 feet in height. We selected it as our objective.

We packed up for five days in the backcountry. We told our friends at the monastery to watch our stuff and that we would return. They mentioned a need to watchout for "shoplifters" pointing at the term in our Tibetan phrasebook. But we were pretty sure we wouldn't see anyone up that high.

The next 48 hours offered up warm sunny days and very cold nights. As we spent time scouting the approach to the peak, it became obvious that climbing in full sun was going to be our only choice if we expected to be warm. On the third day at high camp, we woke up early to make the ascent to the base of the route and to wait for the sun to hit.

Which brings us to the highlight of the trip. After climbing the first two pitches mostly in the chilly shade, we popped out on a perfect little ledge with a clean dihedral above. This is what we had traveled halfway around the world for: quality, unclimbed alpine rock. Erik eagerly cast off on the corner crack. It became obvious that even with our weeks of acclimatization that 5.10 crack climbing is strenuous at altitude. Although there was plenty of huffing and grunting, he climbed it in good style, thanks in part to a nicely placed knob that allowed a no-hands rest halfway up.

On the next pitch, I led an equally appealing crack, except in my case it went from a nice hand crack to being an unprotectable seam. I stopped to belay and brought Erik up, discussed options and came to the conclusion that we would not be able to reach the top without resorting to significant aid climbing. Satisfied with the quality of the climbing we had experienced and with our highpoint, just two pitches from the top, we rappelled back down.

We spent the remaining days back at the Monastery, scouting routes on the main part of the Massif, and climbing two new routes on the rock immediately above the monastery. Erik and Misty had better luck finding clean rock than Anitra and I did, but it was still a nice way to spend our last day.

The next couple of weeks in China were spent traveling and scouting mountains in Yunnan and Southwest Sichuan for AAI trips in September and October of 2005. The people, the culture, and the the many unclimbed summits throughout our journey convinced us to return to this corner of the world and try and climb some more. We had experienced a truly adventurous journey and seen people and places that very few Westerners have ever encountered. I am very excited to return and learn more about the Kham region of Eastern Tibet and Western Sichuan.

In our upcoming guided trips to the region, we'll be focusing on glaciated peaks as opposed to rock peaks. Besides anticipating more normal weather this year than the region experienced in '04, the fact that we will be making our ascents largely on snow and ice will mean that the routes won't go out of shape even if we do get a little snow. We'll focus on exploring previously unvisited mountainous terrain and trying to ascend unclimbed peaks. I can imagine spending many years exploring these remote ranges, and I can't wait to get back!