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.

China - Gongga - Part 1 - The Overview

We're all back and alive from our first foray into the mountains. We're hanging out in Kang Ding now, but we are leaving tomorrow morning for our next adventure starting in the town of Litang. It is evening now, so I don't have a lot of time to fill in too many details or post pictures. To make a very long story short... We hiked into the mountains - our basecamp was 20 miles in (over a 16,100-foot pass) and was at 14,200 feet. We made an attempt on an unclimbed peak, but failed. After a week in basecamp, we took off and continued down valley two days to a really cool ancient monastery at the base of Gongga Shan (7556 meters) - the highest peak in Sichuan. We hung out there for 3 days then hiked out over another 16,000-foot pass and to a remote village where we stayed with a really cool Tibetan dude and his family. We then took a 6-hour car ride back to Kang Ding. It would have been over, except we left the basecamp, so the last two days I spent hiking back in and out so the horses could retrieve all of our gear. (I did the 20 miles, at altitude, over rough terrain in just under 6 hours each direction). Anyways, I'll start posting pictures as soon as I can.
On another note, Sara is moving on, so it will just be the three of us traveling together from here.

China - Kang Ding

We made it to Kang Ding today. We only got kang-dinged once on the way here. 400 Yuan for lunch! - Ouch - shouldn't have ordered the fish out of the bucket I guess. Otherwise it was just a long exhaust filled ride - about 10 hours. That included the 1 hour+ traffic jam where a truck got its faced removed. Looked pretty gnarly. Beautiful country though, very rugged. Kang Ding has about 80,000 people I guess and seems pretty cool. We had a nice Tibetan dinner where they sat us in a private room and blared a music video with traditional Chinese dance done to techno music. So this might be the last blog entry for a while (3 weeks or so). We're thinking about moving up to the next, and final, town (Lao Yuling or something like that) tomorrow where we start our climbing adventure. It's only about an hour away they say. Can't upload any pictures - I was lucky enough to even get this much uploaded...

Cool, finally got a better connect for pics. Here they are...


Tired in the Dragontown hostel:


Loading the van:


The undisputed ruler of the road:


Our expensive lunch and our driver Easy E.:


"I've been KANG-DINGED!":


Definitely not a Dong Feng:


Poor wittle piggies in the back:


Just in case you were wondering:


Dinner at the Techno Tibetan:


Gear packing:

China - Chengdu

Here we are in Chengdu! Everything so far has been incredibly smooth. No problem with the flights, got all our luggage, easy transfer to the hostel. Today (Wednesday) we met Jay's friend Eddie, who he's storing some stuff with for his future adventures in China. After that we went to the bank, got a new phone card for the cell phone, got a permit at the SMA office, purchased fuel, went food shopping, and arranged our ride for tomorrow to Kangding - all by 1:30! I think we've pretty much got this town wire. So tomorrow at 8 am we take a private van to Kangding where we will spend two nights before heading up into the mountains. Here a couple pics from the trip so far.

Loading up the car in Leavenworth:


Airport antics:


Shopping in Chengdu:


Jay in our hostel room (we got the super deluxe penthouse suite):


Sara in the duel shower head bathroom:


Michelle in the master bedroom:


Me, lounging on the private veranda:

Eldorado Peak - East Ridge

We climbed Eldorado in August. Our plan to climb the West Arete - a long technical rock climb - was foiled by the weather, so we ended up just hiking up the standard route. This blog entry is written way after the fact, so here are a few pics from the trip.

The total elevation gain is something like 6,600 feet straight up the side of the valley. Here's Michelle in the talus fields a little ways up:


The north face of Johannesburg (John and I climbed the rib on the left a few weeks later):


Getting above tree line - Mt. Torment, Mt. Boston, and Sahale Peak in the distance:






First view of Eldorado Peak - the peak in the center


Michelle climbing up the Eldorado Glacier:






Big glacier:


Cool clouds:


Looking over at the west side of Eldorado:


Mt. Forbidden


We camped up on the east shoulder of the peak, then the next morning headed down to check out the route:


Here we met our good friends Jim and Marlene (we were supposed to be camped together, but I'll spare you the details of the mistake).


We decided the weather didn't look to good so we hiked back up the the standard route on the east shoulder and continued to the top.

Mt. Baker:


Marlene and Michelle:


Nasty clouds:


Jim coming up the final summit ridge:


Marlene and Michelle




On the summit!