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Chola Shan Expedition |
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In January of 2004, I went back to China to visit my parents. Before that, I had not been back to China since 1998. During the past 10 years, I have been occupied with life in America and almost forgot about China all together. But life is like a circle. At the end of its decade, I started to feel un urge to look back at the country which I came from. This trip in China impacted me greatly. China has been going through eye-catching change everyday in the past decade. Today it is almost a strange country to me, and yet it is my home country. It is a very weird feeling, as if you met an old friend who behaves like a total stranger. I also realized how little I actually knew this land, and the people who live on this land. At that time, I was planning a trekking trip to Nepal as my belayed honeymoon trip. But after this trip to China, a new idea came to me. I decided to climb a mountain in the province of SiChuan, where my ancestors lived for generations. Since it is very difficult to find reliable climbing information in China, I decided to connect with Chinese climbers who have first-hand or updated climbing experience. After I came back from China, I started doing a lot of Internet search and sending emails to people. The initial effort has been frustrating. Most people I contacted did not understand what I want. Climbing is still a very obscure sports in China despite its growing popularity, especially technical climbing. But fortunately I got in touch with Jon Otto and Ma YiHua, the founders of Arete Alpine Instruction Center based in ChengDu. They led a team and climbed Chola Shan in 2003, which was the 4th time this mountain has been climbed since the first ascent in 1988. They were planning to lead another team to climb it again in 2004. I decided to collaborate with AAIC and form a separate team in Seattle which shadows their team. The connection and resource AAIC has greatly benefites us especially in logistic planning. By the end of April, six of us were committed to the Chola Shan expedition. Besides me and Tao, there are Nathan, Bruce, Tina and Rod. We held several productive organizational meeting discussing gears, travel plan, first aid supply, maps, financial cost and climbing itinery, etc. By July, we were ready to go ... |
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