Days 1 to 5

Discovering Feng Shan

20th We met at 6:00 AM and carried our 3 bags each to the bus station in the early morning rain of Yangshuo’s summer time. Our bus journey was Yangshuo to Guilin, Guilin to He che, He che to Feng Shan. We arrived at about 7:00 and met Mr Wei for dinner. We did not have many bolts so we decided to spend a few days looking around and playing before we got down to making routs.

21st We looked around Chuan Long yan (The dragon Cave) and in the afternoon we went to San men hai 三门海 and walk through the 3 big arches and went swimming. When we got back to feng shan we had dinner in a big fancy hotel with some officials. In the evening me and Adong when to see what else there was to do here. We found a local theatre and after peeping over a wall at the back we found a roller disco. No one was there except to girls so we asked them to teach us to skate. Feng Shan is very remount and not many tourists go there. They were very surprised to see us and even more that we were walking around and playing and talking with local people.

22nd The big wall descent day.
Paul had had his eye on making a multi pitch rout on the big cliff above the town following a crack up about 6 pitches. We got up at about 8:00 am and sorted all our things, then hiked up through high fields of maze and fruit trees fighting of the mosquitoes. Then we started to climb up through the jungle to get to the start of the abseil. We were only 10m from the place we wanted to get when I pulled off a rock and nearly fell off the mountain! as we were not far from the edge and the rock had suddenly become unstable. We all roped up and Paul led a short pitch to the top and belayed off a tree. I climbed up next and Adong followed but fell off as a rock broke. He cut his knee and shin and looked a bit shaken up. Paul full of enthusiasm started to rig the abseil off a tree right over the edge of the cliff. His plan was for us all to abseil down and bolt as we go. I decided to not go so if they had some problem I could get more equipment and help.
I climbed back down through the jungle and all the way back down into the town. I was afraid for them and if they knocked off any rocks it might land on someone as we were so close to the town.
They descended 3 pitches down the cliff. I eat Ice cream and watch as the afternoon drags on and they were working in the sun with out any water. They did not bolt the last anchor and abseiled to the ground by tying to ropes together and abseiling on a single rope to get all the way down.

23rd. The rope rescue day.
We had about 140m of rope up on the cliff now that needed to come down. I said I would go and get it. It was hard as the cliff was so overhung. I climb the rope to just past the knot and then got Adong and Paul to swing me into the cliff. It was about a 30m swing from fully out too fully into the cliff. I had picked a hold on the cliff I could hold on to when I was swung into it. I put as sky hock into one of the holds but It was not good. I played with putting some big cams in but I could not get anything to fit. I placed an opposing sky hock and carefully slackened off my jumars so the rope stretch would not lift me off the placements. I haled up the hall bag with the drill and bolts about 60m. I had unwittingly left some other equipment in it. All together it was very heavy. It took about 15 min for me to pull this up bit by bit! I drilled the first bolt and clipped to it feely such a relief that I now could not swing back out into the emptiness of the feng shan sky. I drill the second one and pulled the rope up from the ground and tide it to the anchor. Then I tightened up my jumars and lowered my self out into space again. I then climbed the remaining 60m’s to the tope anchor. I tied to it and pulled the rope through so I could abseil down to the new anchor I had made before. It was a full 60m down and the rope was so stiff in my ATC guide. I put 4 extra carabineers in as heat sinks and to make it run more smoothly. At last I reach the same height as the new anchor. l pulled my self into it with a jumar. I threaded the anchor and started to pull the rope through the top one with growing excitement and worry for things to keep on working properly. It all did and 10 min later I was on the ground and the hardest 4 hours of my time in feng shan were over! We took our stuff back to the hotel and when for lunch, after we went swimming in yuan yang quan鸳鸯泉, a natural spring where the water is so blue it looks like it was made in Photoshop. There were some children playing there and they were as everyone here very surprised to see us.

24th. Rest day!
We had a Rest day as I had a bad stomach. I think I had eaten too much water melon! In the afternoon we went swimming again in yuan yang quan.

25th. The completion of the first new rout.
We got up early as Xiao yu was leaving that morning. After she got on the bus we sorted our things and took them to the far side of the dragon cave where we looked around for an easy but interesting rout. It was my tern to try and I wanted to bolt and send a rout that day. I found a big over hanging cave climb that I could build by leaving old rope tide through threads in the rock and a few bolts. I climbed up on trad and took a long time but I got there in the end. I climbed up and down several times changing things then I came down and pulled the rope and sent it first go; very happy. The Name is龍牙 (The Dragons Teeth), F5+ (5.10b).
Mr Wei came to see how we were getting on well I was climbing. We told him we could not do to much as we only had a few bolts. He said he could help us with that and would pay for some bolts for feng shan.

Feng Shan Whats next

This year sees the first interntional caving semina held in Feng Shan and a Feng Shan's aplication for would heritage status.