Blogs

Introduction

It was early September 2010 when an old and good friend of mine was talking to me in Hong Kong. He said, ‘One of my rock climbing clients asked me if I can run a mountaineering expedition for them’. They wanted to sponsor a chinese climber to climb a big mountain. He said he had told them he would like to climb the South west face of Shishapangma and could organise a small expedition with him and his friends. He asked if I would like to come, and of course I said yes.

Update 14th of August 2011: A new map and tops can now be downloaded for Petzl's website, click here.

Download a sneak peek of the new getuhe 150 pitches of climbing. This place is truly amazing with it’s towering walls of limestone and big caves. Hidden away in Guizhou province at over 1000 m elevation is this small village surrounded by rock.

Petzl Rock tirp 2011 new web page and updates Click here.

I Just had a week in Guizhou Getuhe 格凸河 bolting routes with the petzl team for the rock trip in October. I started traveling from Yangshuo on the 12 and by 5:30 PM on the 13th I arrived. It was quite a difficult journey changing bus’s, train’s and taxi’s many times along the way.

Update:
See this page on the petzl website for updates on the China Rock Trip. The 2011 rock trip will happen between the 26th and the 30th of October 2011 in Getuhe 格凸河.

Introducing the new climbing area in Laojunshan National Park and a new website http://junshanclimber.com. Visit it and download the new free pdf guide with over 40 routes.

This was sent to me from a friend in Yangshuo:

See the following warning from Petzl. Pass the word.

http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/02/11/warning-regarding-presence-counterfeit-versions-petzl-products

www.coloursofdiscovery.com has a new theme. This is the first theme I have made my self. There is a lot of work to do on it yet but the basics are working now.
The most important thing now is to make it look right in Internet Explorer, but the latest versions of all other browsers I have tried work very well. These include: Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Safari.

The trip report I can't publish!

I can't post this report on my site but if you would like to read it just fill out the contact form like the example below and I will send it to you. Its about a trek that took 7 days around a mountain, it's a classic pilgrimage for a select group of Buddhists.

Back into the forest

29/07/2010 Day 6

Our first 40 km, back out into the open meadows, horses, cows, and sheep could be seen grazing on pastures around and about. Small wooden houses and the occasional yurt could be seen as we rode between small villages. The road was small and winding with virtually no traffic. As we rode along one straight, I spotted a large dog it was looking inside one of the houses in barking. We rode past the dog and the wind blew our sent, without looking round I knew suddenly the dog was following us. It did not bark, they say in china if a dog does not bark, that is the dangerous ones. As they say a dog who barks will not bite. I shouted to Xiaoshuang, "ride fast, there's a dog". She swerved left and right across the road but seemed unable to pick up the pace. I rode on ahead, looking back, seeing the dog following Xiaoshuang and put my brakes on hard. Xiaoshuang came past me and we carried on riding as normal. The dog left us alone after that and the rest of our day was clear and uneventful.

30/07/2010 Day 7
Today was all in the forest, the road was more interesting with some up and down. The sky was filled with scattered clouds and it was not hot or cold. We arrived at our destination at about 2:30. It was starting to rain so we stopped at a restaurant to have lunch. The local people told us we should stay here as the next place we could stay was more then 70 Km ride away! So we took it easy, waited for the rain to stop and then set off to find somewhere to stay, do our washing, etc. 

The Start of our ride

24/07/2010 Day 1
We got up at 5:30 packed our things and ate breakfast. We did not hurry and by seven we started riding. It was really hot and the sun climbed higher and higher through the clear cloudless blue sky. Riding on a long flat road with the odd truck, a few cars and some motorbikes. The road stretched out in lengths of about 5K at a time reaching into a hazy horizon. Not many people live here but the road got busier throughout the day.

Xiaoshuang was tired still from the train ride and overwhelmed by the distance. The ride was hard for her and the heat of the sun was almost too much. After riding about 70 kilometres we stopped under a bridge, we talked a little about the ride so far. I asked her how important it was, do you really want to do this? She said it wasn't so important, but she wanted to complete it anyway.
We passed the hundred K mark, rested drank and ate the last bits of food and water and set off on what we thought were still 30 km to ride. A hundred metres further on we went round the corner and found ourselves at our destination! Checking into the small guesthouse and talking to local people, they asked us if we wanted to go to swim with them in the river. Xiaoshuang said she wanted to rest and stay here. But I jumped on the back of a motorbike with the owner of the hotel. And went to the River for a swim. The guesthouse has no showers and this was the perfect way to get clean after a long hot day. Another early night as we plan to get up the next morning at 4:30.

25/07/2010 Day 2
This ride was meant to be 60 km to a small town called bo ke tu. But we did an extra 20 km more to a small village giving us a shorter day the day after. The weather was great, we rested for two hours at lunch and still arrived at the end of our ride by three o'clock! Today we were both high-spirited and both found the riding quite easy. This was despite the large amount of up and down. The roads were not flat and straight like yesterday.