Shangri La Expedition - Dispatches from the Field
October 26th, 2009
Kasha Rigby, Giulia Monega and Ingrid Backstrom approaching Redommaine Peak (20,047ft).
I’m back home after a month of hauling 70 lb duffel bags, camera equipment, ski bags, and packs through airports, cities, villages, into the mountains of western Sichuan and back. At the end of it all, between the chaos of modernizing Chinese cities, gnarly jeep rides, packing and repacking of gear, ancient Buddhist temples and solemn Tibetan monks, specialty drinks made of boiled chicken bone liquor, burn your face off spicy dishes, and a lot of walking, Kasha Rigby, Ingrid Backstrom, Giulia Monega and myself were able to climb and make the first ski descent of Redommaine , a 20,000ft peak in the Minya Konka range. A lot can happen in a month. Here are a few of our dispatches from the field. Check it.
Dispatch 1 - Traveling through China to Western Sichuan
Traveling through China to get to a remote high altitude peak is always an interesting affair. We are pretty sure that we’ve hit almost every mode of transportation. Driving from Chengdu, we’ve shuttled our gear between buses, jeeps, minivans and cars. We’ve also seen some amazing parts of the country and met some classic characters. Here are a few pics from our travels.
Kasha Rigby looking over the Kawa Karpo Mountains.
Tibetan Khampa embarking on a 150 mile pilgramage around Kawa Karpo Peak, Yunnan, China.
Dispatch 2 - Quick and Dirty Update
From the day we left home, we traveled for over ten days before we were finally dropped off by a small mini van at the end of a bumpy dirt road in western Sichuan, aka the middle of nowhere. It’s been a wild ride. We reorganized our gear, loaded up a few horses with the help of our Tibetan horsemen (and women) and set off on foot into the mountains. After another two days of following our gear laden horses, jumping streams and wandering through high alpine meadows, the sharp peaks of the Minya Konka range began to emerge from behind the foothills. Ingrid was stopped in her tracks as she peered up at one of the first snow and ice covered spear shaped peaks.
Ingrid Backstrom approaching basecamp.
We gained stoke and momentum over the next few hours as the mountains gradually revealed themselves. When we finally glimpsed Redommaine, we stopped to stare. The northwest face looked incredible, steep with snow spines draped across its flanks. The entire face was guarded by a massive hanging serac…..The west ridge looked promising and we scanned it for an entry point. Cracked glaciers and icefalls surrounded the bottom of the mountain. We continued on for a few more hours trying to get our Tibetan horseman to take our gear as close to the peak as possible. We rounded a bend and found a gleaming lake nestled below our peak. Amazing, an alpine lake reminiscent of the high Sierras, but with a massive glaciated 20,000+ft peak on the other side. So far the weather had been cooperating. We set up basecamp around 14,500ft and planned our next few days.
Today, after a major gear explosion and laughing at the absurd amount of gear we had in tow, we sorted and packed sleeping bags, tents, skis, crampons, ropes ice screws etc, we headed up towards the mountain to scout a route and carry gear to a drop off point below the real climbing. We’re in full charging mode trying to get up before the weather turns. Not much time to acclimitize….We have an alpine start tomorrow to begin the climbing. The route looks exciting and the skiing will be real. We’re hoping to set one camp on the ridge and make a big push while the weather holds. Keeping our fingers crossed that the splitter weather stays for a couple more days.
Dispatch 3 - Moving Higher
Kasha Rigby carrying gear to high camp on Redommaine Peak.
After staying in camp for three days, observing the weather patterns, the only information we could glean for certain was that the weather here changes every half hour. We hadn’t seen anything super nasty yet, just unsettled waves of rain, hail, snow, thunder and an occasional blast of sunshine. So, on the fourth day, when we woke up to high gray skies and no wind, we headed up towards the mountain. Our plan was to grab our gear stash, carry it up to the ridge and establish camp at around 17,000ft. With light packs, we had reached our cache at noon, loaded up our packs (and I mean LOADED our packs) and set off to put in the boot pack up the 1500ft face up to the west ridge.
Kasha Rigby navigating the ridge at 17,500ft.
Once on the ridge, shouldering our cumbersome and awkward packs, we climbed and carefully navigated the knife edge ridge of snow and rock. There was huge exposure on either side. The snowy hanging glacier at 17,000ft seemed like the best place to set our high camp. With a steller sunset and approaching full moon, we chose to spend the night, hope for clear weather and go for the summit in the morning. We cozied up in our tent and started melting water for the following day. We set our alarms for 4am, hoping for a clear day.
Giulia Monega hanging out at high camp.
Dispatch 4 - Summit Day
Ingrid Backstrom shredding some warm up turns at 17,500ft.
We slept amazingly sound for being sardined head-to-foot, four people in a three person tent. The good night’s rest helped us put an optimistic spin on the (again) mixed bag of weather in the morning. The climb started with an open snowfield for a bit, and then proceeded to a series of rocky ridges—the combo of loose rocks, exposure, and deep sugary snow quickly slowed us down, and halfway through the first ridge we were setting anchors, both ropes in use. After the rocks, the pitch mellowed out a bit into a long, snowy ridge, bordered on the left side by a sharp overhanging cornice, and thousands of feet of exposed slopes on our right.
The weather steadily got worse as the few blue holes turned into just the lighter grey patches against the dark of the rest of the sky. Snow was blowing sideways—but the limited visibility may have been a boon mentally because we could no longer see the exposure below us—out of sight, out of mind, right?! Jimmy led up and over a small steep pitch topped with a cornice, then belayed the rest of us up.
Kasha Rigby, Giulia Monega and Ingrid Backstrom climbing at 18,500ft.
We took our first real rest at a rock outcropping and decided that, given the worsening weather and limited visibility, the wise thing to do would be to turn around, so we did. For about 200 feet. Getting ready to belay back down the corniced pitch, suddenly we were all like those old guys that sit on the balcony in the Muppets, totally changing our tune. “Well, the weather has never really been that good since we got here, but it’s never really been THAT bad, either. It’s snowing, but not really accumulating. The winds aren’t too terrible, and we’re all feeling pretty good. We should keep going! ” About face!
We roped up in teams of two to negotiate the wide, crevasse-striped slopes, and the next several hours were a blur of one foot in front of the other. The trail breaking was fairly brutal and we switched out positions from time to time. There were a series of wide, flat, crevassed slopes where the deeper snow made for slower going, followed by steep icy humps. Kasha wanded the route with zen-like precision, marking any holes and significant spots while Giulia took way-points on her GPS. We stopped every hour or so for water, Clif Bloks, and some particularly tasty organic pop-tarts, but never for more than a few minutes because we had momentum–we could all feel that without even having to discuss it—and we didn’t want to break it.
The team climbing through the storm at 19,500ft.
After what seemed like an eternity of trail breaking, our altitude was finally reading over 6000m and we knew we had to be getting close. It was snowing and daylight was fading fast. The steep but manageable snow slope we were on suddenly gave way to a steeper, icy bulge. We knew we had to make up time for all the slow trail breaking in deep snow. So, we decided to unrope and punch for the top, each soloing, using both tools to clear away the rotten ice on top and get a solid bite in the watery ice beneath. You just couldn’t go too far left (steep overhanging cornice), and you really didn’t even want to look down right (ice cliffs, Exposure with a capital E), which made it easy to focus on getting every point solid before moving the next one. Thankfully this section wasn’t too long, and a few hundred feet later we were back in deep, lower-angled snow, and then, finally on top of a flat knob. Exhausted, we stopped, looked around and realized we were there!
At this point, visibility was really poor. We couldn’t really see anything, so we took a photo or two and stepped into our bindings. We made a few pow turns at the top and then side-slipped, side-stepped using one tool and one whippet, not saying a word to each other, down the ice bulge. What had taken us 12 or so hours to climb up, took less than three to ski down (very carefully in the low visibility and now dwindling daylight). We basically skied by Braille and scanned the white out landscape in front of us for crevasses, major drop off’s and wands. A little sketchy for sure. We eventually made it most of the way down the ridge with some clever route-finding, one skis-on rappel, and a short rocky section where we had to take our skis off and downclimb for about 150 feet or so. The further down we got, the more the weather abated until there was only a haze in the sky and still air all around us. As a bonus, on the way up we had seen a potential ski route that would allow us to avoid the longest section of rocky ridges we’d climbed up. We put Ingrid on belay, and she skied down to see if the route went or not. The section was skiable, so we skied pow under a full moon on the open snowfield right to the tent. A celebratory meal of Italian cheese and salami put everyone out cold. The next day we downclimbed one more rock section and ripped mushy turns over the barely covered talus all the way down to 15,500 feet.
The team - Giulia Monega, Ingrid Backstrom, Kasha Rigby and Jimmy Chin
That evening, after hauling our huge packs back to base camp, we ate tortellini in chicken broth, still exhausted and in disbelief that everything had gone so smoothly. And of course, the next morning, as if to taunt us, the summit of Reddomaine showed her face for a sunny half-hour. The summit block looked far far away and tiny compared to what it felt like when we were on top. Then she went behind the clouds for the remainder of our stay. After a day of rest and packing, we got the horses loaded. We eventually shouldered our packs and hiked slowly down valley towards civilization, always looking back over our shoulders towards Redommaine and smiling.
