Yangshuo Climbing Festival 2009

Excitement in growing throughout China for this year’s Yangshuo Climbing Festival and we can anticipate a lot more people showing up to share in the climbing fun. The event will be sponsored primarily by North Face and Black Diamond, with NF supplying most of the money and BD most of the support and work coordinating all of the parts, especially those in China.

A quick summary of what to expect this year. There are 500 places available and spaces are filling to capacity fast. The format will be much different this year because of uncertainties that presented themselves last year. In addition to open climbing, there will be a type of treasure hunt at 10 crags with prize envelopes at the anchors of 70 routes. Climbing at any of the other 24 crags is encouraged.

The only competition will be a bouldering comp held at the sports stadium. The festival will build a wall at the back of the stage and after the festival, the wall will be turned over to the local government as a way encourage more local people to take up the sport. The wall should be available to all climbers and could turn out to be the place to hang out after dark or on rainy days.

There will also be climbing clinics on a number of topics and slide shows from well known climbers such as Alex Honnolt. The atmosphere should be fun and we are working on sponsors and local vendors to make sure enough food, drinks and beer are available. Holding the events at the stadium will ensure we are all comfortable should it rain again as it did last year. Transportation to the crags will be by bicycle and we are working to have some food and drinks available for sale at a few of the central crags.

So far the committee has been very effective at working together but the real work starts now in constructing the wall, preparing the stadium and putting up the prize envelopes. We are all looking forward to having the international and Chinese climbing community ascend upon Yangshuo for a few days of climbing and socializing. I know many climbers who plan to stay around for up to a month after the event to take advantage of Yangshuo’s best weather and I have a list of redpoints I will be working on to cap off my year. Looking forward to seeing you all there.