China - Gongga - Part 2 - The Approach

From Kang Ding we hired a car to the small town of Louling. Here we hired our horses for the trip into base camp. Then we took one of these up to the trail head:


The children at the horse guy's house were really photogenic:


Jay shows off his photography skills:


"I am not a crook"


You see, I wasn't kidding, we really did get a ride to the trail head:


The horse guy's house was at about 10,000 feet. Our first day we hiked about 12 miles and camped at 13,800 feet. This was only our 3rd day from sea-level. We were all pretty wasted.

The start of the valley:




We met some cool yak herders up there:


The second day we hiked over the 16,000-foot pass. Luckily it was only a short distance, so we didn't get completely killed by the altitude.




Reddomaine peak on the right is one of the major peaks of the area:


Here are some of the other peaks of the area from the pass:


Jay shows us that he has the longest arm in the bunch:


The west ridge of Reddomaine:


From the pass it was just a short hike down to our basecamp at 14,200 feet.