Siguniang Shan comprises four main peaks, the highest reaching 6250m. The first ascent of this peak was in 1981 by a Japanese team following the southeast ridge. The ascent lasted for 16 days and the Japanese used 2000m of fixed ropes.

We’ve been in the Siguniang Shan before, and were certain that everything would go smoothly. Suddenly two of our companions had withdrawn
from this trip, one sick the other too busy at work. We cut down
the gear list drastically, there would only be the two of us. Geordie
(Steven Waiwah Yip) a technical operations manager for Asia Pacific Adventure, (a British Born Chinese (BBC) who grew up in Newcastle, UK) (hence his nickname) and myself.

Our trip started badly. We missed our flight because of motorway congestion. Our airline in Baiyun Airport has no English speaking attendants, but we managed to catch a flight on Sichuan Airlines with loud protests from the airport security as we boarded the plane with our climbing gear: two big knives, two pairs of crampons, four ice axes and assorted gear. It was a wonder they actually allowed us on board with such benign hand luggage! 10 hours later, we landed in Chengdu Airport. It was as planned, the driver took us to the hotel and next day we went food shopping. Rilong in Siguniang Shan is an 8 hour drive away.

When we arrived our Rilong contact’s charming affable wife, who knew nothing of our plans, greeted us. It seems he was busy with another group of clients and was due back in three days. With agonizing consideration we decided to organise our own logistics. Geordie being BBC has no understanding of Mandarin, I was proudly utilising my limited Mandarin vocabulary to communicate with the locals. After a few hours I managed to negotiate what I thought was some horses, a price and an itinerary. Our logistics masterstroke was turning into a marvellous act of improvisation. We sorted out our luggage, some more gear and we went to bed.

At 4am we drove to Chanping Guo where three local Tibetans were waiting with four horses. We loaded the horses and confirmed the itinerary and the price with the Tibetans before moving on. The itinerary was as agreed however the price was not! It seems we were supposed to pay them for eight days, not just one! We disagree and they unloaded the horses and left. Alone, angry and helpless in the mountain with 150kg of luggage! Beyond our control, we called them back. An hour later, after heated negotiations we doubled price for one working day only and the finally we are off!!

Four hours later, with disagreement as to where to camp and again taken advantage of by the locals who refuse to take us closer to the wall, tired and frustrated we overdo our finances. We randomly decided on a wall and start going up. Six hours later, I clawed out of the Tibetans another 50m until finding a reasonabe looking base camp site. We paid and agreed that they’d be back in a few days for the same price to take us back down.

Our porters told us our randomly chosen wall was the most famous and coveted peak in the range. Happy yet very tired we picked up our backpacks and in an hour of scrambling and slogging we reached the base of the wall. I vomited more than once due to high altitude of 4500m and having not eaten for last 12 hours. We set up our tents while the darkness surrounds us. I threw up once more, then crawled inside the tent wet
and exhausted.

In the morning we inspect the wall for the line and it was obvious which one to choose. In the 30’s the Italian climber Comici wrote that the perfect line of a route would be the trajectory of a water drop released from the top of the wall. Such a route later became known as a diretissima. We found our diretissima, in the middle of the wall were two parallel cracks that ended in a roof. During the excitement and frustration of the day before, mixed with the nonstop exercise on this trip, I was dehydrating. Usually I am careful, but unfortunately I ignored the warnings and now was faced with a headaches and yet more vomiting.

We meet our local contact and a client from Hong Kong at our base camp informing them we’ll be down on the 8th, I was able to find a spot near our base camp to retrieve a weak signal on my mobile and managed to send an sms to my girlfriend in Guangzhou describing details so far. As soon as the message was sent my battery died. It was raining heavily. Slowly the rain water creeps into our tent.

Next day we jumped at the wall. After the first few meters we realise with all our gear only the largest pieces of pro we brought along were useful. The progress was slow; during this odyssey I was curled up on a ledge, bent over in pain, every now and again vomitting down to the land below. That evening, we fixed the pitch and put up the portaledge. That was a new experience for both of us. We didn’t appreciate the humour of our situation then, but we did look like crazy monkeys on a string. Geordie’s sleeping bag fell into the valley below, we fell asleep in some rather less orthodox positions. Needles to say it pours!!

In the morning with a trip to recover the dropped sleeping bag, and the prospect of a better night sleep has pushed us to work harder. That evening, we hauled up the portaledge and the luggage to somewhere around 200m. The next day rained so hard there was zero visibility and we stayed put. In the afternoon we received a message over the radio. Our Tibetan contact below was saying something in Mandarin, which I thought was ‘come down’, Geordie tried to find out from the Hong Kong guy in Cantonese with no success. Finally our break through with a word
‘Piao’, which means ticket, it seemed we did not have a valid climbing permit on our wall. We agree we will fix the permit problem once we descend, as we had wasted so much time already. Wet and tired, hoping for a better tomorrow as we drift off to sleep…

Tomorrow came equally wet. It was obvious the bad weather was here to stay. It was my turn to lead now. The next two 70m were mine to enjoy: I was thinking of Comici and his diretissima. Were he still alive I would break his legs! His drop of water was a fully fledged waterfall gushing down onto my head. By the time I reached the corner it was dark, I was exhausted and hypothermic and thought I saw Comici floating, riding on a cloud.

The last stretch of the wall was a blur. We were on the top of our wall at 2:45 am on the 8th of June 2006, we have done it. Had we had one more day and obtained a proper permit we would have gone for the final ridge to the summit. However, now the priority was: DOWN! and a plane to catch in just 24 hours!

Next morning during our descent the ropes got stuck and Geordie began clambering up to free them. The hex fell, the camalots popped out from the crack along with the abseil rope, and with luck I was able to grab the ends of the abseil ropes. Because of the exhaustion, we didn’t notice that the crack was an expando, a crack that under weight and pressure opens up. I was hanging, Cliffhanger style, off the ends of the abseil ropes, Geordie was stuck 70m higher and I had just dropped my radio and could not tell him what was happening. Somehow I managed to tie up the ends of the ropes together and clip in my daisy and waited till Geordie reached me. The imminence of the disaster woke us and we checked everything twice from there onwards, in the end we managed to get ourselves back down by 6pm.

There were only two and not three Tibetan porters waiting for us but our contact and his Hong Kong companion were gone. It was dark when we were ready to leave, we had to pay the porters more before they agreed take us back at night. We were walking like zombies and lost the trail in the early stages of the hike down. We had to carry some of the load as there were less porters. I managed to slip and fly over a cliff through some bushes and end up in a stream and dislocated my knee and had to knock it back in.

We were two hours late, our driver was not there and our porter refused to go further. But with luck our local contact came back an hour later and after some heated negotiations we were moving again. It seems our local contact was able to sort out our permit in Rilong. We paid a hefty fine in Rilong, and to top it all up our porter lost some of our gear, but we were just too exhausted to care. Our driver managed to drive the 8 hour route to the airport in 6 hours and arrived at the ticketing office just in time to board. Covered in mud, our hands drenched in blood and not that fragrant we boarded the plane. We thought nothing can go wrong now, but there was a last minute mix up and mistake at the ticketing, we got upgraded to first class.? Finally something good was going our way. But all in all, it was a fun holiday!!!!