Climbers drawn to uncharted China mountain range
The Gangga mountains, in Sichuan province, are one of the world's final frontiers. Hong Kong-based mountaineer Paul Niel and his team of intrepid adventurers set out to fill in the blanks by climbing them
Uncharted regions have fascinated explorers and adventurers for as long as humans have been blessed with curiosity. However, in the age of Google Earth, and as mapping abilities and global communications systems have improved, blank areas on the map have become few and far between.
In September, a team of six mountaineers embarked on a mission to explore one of these last frontiers: a mountain range in northwestern Sichuan province - the Gangga massif, which, due to political restrictions and the complexity of access, had been until recently totally off-limits.
Here is what happened, as documented in the journal of Hong Kong-based Austrian mountaineer Paul Niel.
The adventure has finally started - my journey from Hong Kong to Chengdu was short; it took the taxi driver almost longer to find my hotel. Here I meet up with Ed Hannam, the leader of our team. We got to know each other a year ago during a daring winter ascent of Mount Fuji, Japan's highest mountain. There, in a windy ice-cold tent at night, the idea for an expedition to one of the last unexplored corners of China was born. In Chengdu, we are joined by Judith Fall and Gerald Boess, climbing friends from Austria, as well as Australians Dan Da Silva and Rob Baker. Together we are a strong team, ready to follow in the footsteps of ancient explorers.
After a bumpy two-day ride in a minibus loaded up to the roof, over partially mudslide-covered roads, we have finally reached Garzi, a small provincial town by the Yalong River. In addition to our team of six climbers, we have local support on board. Alex, a student from Chengdu, has joined us as a translator, together with Pen, who will be our cook in base camp.
Just as we reach the top of the last mountain pass, Ed shouts, "That's it, there on the horizon, those are our mountains, that's the Gangga!" In the distance we spot an array of rocky spikes, some of them covered with snowcaps, too distant to identify features but the peaks look impressive nevertheless. Our permit lists our goal as "Mount Wunjiang - 5,429 metres", but, Alex explains, this is just a placeholder name the authorities use for unnamed mountains.
