Alpine Climbing in Sichuan

Early Sept was still a bit hot in Yangshuo so after a meeting with Ryan and the Yangshuo Climbing Festival Planning Committee - to give it a special name - I headed off to Sichuan to meet Brian, a fellow YS climber, for some alpine climbing. Due to time constraints, made worse by road repairs into the Siguniang region, we decided to pass on Rilong and Changping Valley where we had initially planned to climb DaoGou Peak, and instead went in through Bipeng Valley looking for a suitable objective.

On the first day we carried our climbing kit high into the valley and got a brief glimpse of the Dragon"s Tooth (approx. 5250m); it was the second most prominent peak in the valley after the huge Yangmantai north west face. We walked back to the hut that afternoon and decided our attempt would be on the Dragon's Tooth.

Over the next two days we ferried all our kit up to the base of the wall and prepared to spend two days figuring out the line before we had to walk out. Alas, it was not to be. On the third evening it began to rain heavily with a lightening storm that would not let us sleep; even though we had made a sheltered place in a cave under a house-sized boulder,with each flash of lightening a searing white light with a deep red center penetrated the eyelids. This was followed by a deafening crack of thunder that echoed across the high peaks - one, two, three, four .. boom. Holy s#*t! I'm glad we weren't bivied on the ridge. In the morning the wall and the high glaciers were dusted with a light coat of new snow. The wall is north facing and would take at least a full day to dry. Our hopes were shattered. We walked out the next day promising to come back soon and to allow enough time to wait out the weather. Our only climbing turned out to be in two of Chengdu's climbing gyms.

The wall itself is between 300-400 meters tall, although we did not get accurate altitude readings at the base and are relying on Chinese topos for our estimates. Far as I know, only one Chinese climber has attempted this wall before; we met with him in Chengdu and he is as excited as we are to return and claim the first ascent. If we can leave some fixed anchors in place, due to its relatively easy accessibility, Dragon's Tooth could become a classic! Gets an alpinist's heart beating.

White Mountain Access

The bottom hangers from all White Mountain routes have been removed, presumably by one of the local villages. This according to the Hot Rock climbers who happen to be in town. I spoke with the 'friendly' village head this morning who was unaware of the problem. He offered to get involved with talking to 'the other' nearby village to settle the issue before the Oct 1st holiday. I won't be around; so the most I can do is keep in phone contact to find out what is actually going on and to report it here.

As I have written in this blog before, we are attempting to set you the Yangshuo Access Initiative (YAI) to deal with these issues. It is my goal to have the YAI sign long-term rental contracts for use of the land at the base of all Yangshuo crags and to open up access to everyone who wants to climb there. I want to avoid having the land use rights being bought by commercial companies who could establish exclusive rights to a crag and charge each climber by the day to climb there. Better to pay an annual rental fee directly to the villagers. This will take quite a bit of negotiations to pull off and we will need the financial support of the entire climbing community if we are to succeed.

Also, I would like to rent the land use rights to the grassy area in front of the crag on a long-term basis. We could use this area to host events and also open it up to camping if someone wants to spend the night there. It is a magical place at sunrise and sunset.

For now, we will find out what is going on with the hangers and try to understand the 'other' village's demands. We are considering putting in glue-in bolts, which will be impossible to remove and very difficult to damage, but I think it best to wait till we have discussions with both villages and try to establish more 'friendly' relationships with both of them. I have also heard that a development company in Guilin is talking about leasing the land-use rights in front of White Mountain, possibly to develop a resort there. I don't think they actually have the money to pull this off at the moment, but it is crucial that the YAI be involved in all of these discussions from the beginning in order to protect the interests of all climbers. Any comments, feedback or suggestions along these lines are greatly appreciated.

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.

Overdue Update

I finally got serious about getting around the blocking of my blog by the govt here. I'll try to post a few blogs a day to catch up on what has happened here recently and what is in the pipeline for the rest of the year. Items include: the second annual Yangshuo Climbing Festival on Nov.13-15; the establishment of the Yangshuo Access Initiative and recent and planned projects; new lines including Chris Sharma's unsent 5.15; alpine climbing in Sichuan -have to throw in my recent trip; climbing in Qingdao and Beijing's Baihe area and the translation of the guidebook into Chinese.

I spent a few weeks in YS in the spring before going on a trip to the US where I only had time to climb at the Enchanted Tower with my brother for a few days. The tower is an awesome place and the climbing on pocketed welded tufts was overhung but juggy - biggest jugs you'll ever fall off of. I got back to China early August and after taking care of visa issues I have been traveling and climbing for the past 4 weeks. I joined a mock competition with a group of international climbers in ShanXi Province and many of us went to Beijing and climbed at Baihe for a few days. Then it was off to YS for a meeting of the committe for the upcoming Climbing Festival. I just got back from Sichuan where we attempted to climb The Dragon's Tooth, a beautiful unclimbed peak in Bipeng Valley. We set ourselves up in a good camp near the base, but we could not wait out the rain and had to walk out without touching the wall.

On the Yangshuo front, bolt hangers have been stolen from the bottom of all White Mountain routes, probably by the second near-by village, so the Yangshuo Access Initiative will have to get active there immediately. I plan to return for the reminder of the year after the October 1st national holidays. Climbing in June and last week in early September was still very hot and humid, but temps and humidity can be expected to start coming down soon. I've got a big list of climbs to redpoint this season and hope to see many of you pulling down at one of Asia's best sport areas.

Hangzhou in May

Another spectacular spring day in Shanghai today and Marcos and I headed out early, 7:20 train, for a day at the Ling Shan crag outside of Hangzhou. We met up with some local climbers and had a great day sport climbing. Photo shows Marcos on a short, crimpy 5.13a.

I managed to link the first 6 draws on the 5.12d a few times but kept getting shut down by the next big move. I need a few more days on it. I am amazed how much better I've climbed it since flailing and grabbing draws two weeks ago. Easily the hardest thing I've ever been on. Marcos redpointed a 5.13a, then got spanked big time on a gnarly 5.13b that features two fist-wide tufas on a 15 degree overhanging headwall that looks super desperate. No feet, no rests. I don't think anyone has sent it yet.

Liu Changzhong is due down in the next few weeks and there is this 13b as well as an unclimbed 13d waiting for him. This Hangzhou stuff is starting to feel like fun. We will have to find some new walls in the area and put up more stuff, especially at my grade: 5.10+.

Let me know if you are in Shanghai and needing to get out climbing; Hangzhou makes a great day trip!

Where's the Money?

Intrigue comes to Yangshuo. Ex-Climber's brother has bought the lease to the land at the base of Wine Bottle and maybe also part of White Mountain. He plans to put up some tourist type climbs and a rope traverse to the forest floor below and sell it to non-climber tourists. QQ has done the same thing with Golden Cat Cave. Even more worrying is farmers around White Mountain have been asking climbers for money and recently used ladders to chop bolts from routes. Police were called in recently when violence was threatened but the police simply told the climbers to leave.

I guess you could have to call this move 'enterprising' and I hope they can make enough money to buy a house and a Mercedes Benz. This being China, the land of desperate entrepreneurs, it had to happen sooner or later. It's the next act in an ongoing saga of trying to make money off climbing.

The size of the 'guided climbing' pie is not big enough to feed all the local climbing shops and any effort to increase the size of the pie should benefit everyone. On the other hand, if the pie does not increase measurably and this just serves to re-allocate the existing pieces, then we could be in for a full-scale guiding war. If the farmers are thinking 'Gravy Train', no one is going to eat very much.

And this just after it looked like the Yangshuo Climbing Association was getting its act together as a representative body for the interests of all climbers (or was it just in the interest of a few climbing shops?).

The logical next step is to turn climbing into a cash cow to pay for the house, car, vacations abroad, the whole Peiking Duck! With a little ingenuity, maybe some underhanded dealing and a lot of pluck, they could control all climbing access.

Dirt-bags vs Deng Xiaoping and getting rich is 'glorious'. More in a few days once I'm in Yangshuo and can better judge just where this all might be going.

Hangzhou Climbing

The May 1st holiday weekend is upon us which means it is almost time to head back down south for the best of spring climbing in Yangshuo. I usually wait till after the busy weekend before I head down. I'm looking for cheap tickets for after the 11th and hope to stay till the end of the month.

In the meantime, I've been going over to Hangzhou, the Ling Shan crag, with Marcos from the Shanghai gym. There are only a handful of, 7 or 8, climbs bolted at the moment and I find all of them pretty stiff for the grades. Maybe I'm not comfortable with the limestone there yet. The only 'warm-up' is a short but stiff 5.10b. Gets you on your arms from the get go and doesn't let up till you dyno for the very top, usually with a painful flash-pump. Next comes a scary 5.11a, a multi-pitch climb that is probably a bit harder than that, then a 5.12d before the harder 5.13 climbs! Not really my kind of place at this time, but I do enjoy working some of the difficult lines on top-rope.

I've worked a 12d on TR the past two sessions and managed to link the first 6 draws. The crux section comes next and I'll begin working the entire thing on lead. This is like almost 2 number grades beyond what I usually struggle up but it has been good for me. I'm breaking through some barriers as well as getting stronger. Raw finger tips, sore arms and frozen shoulders the next morning is the price I'm still willing to pay.

The crag stays wet for a few days after it rains and we plan on bolting some new lines once the rains stop. There is not much there at the moment, but it still beats climbing indoors any day! There are lots of other crags that have yet to be touched, and we saw one huge cave that looks intriguing. We are at the crag in just over 2 hours from the Shanghai station and usually back home after 10pm. Marcos has Thursdays off so this could turn into a regular thing whenever I'm not in Yangshuo or on a climbing trip.