After encountering challenging conditions in their attempt on Nyambo Konka in the Sichuan province of China, New Zealand climbers Penny Goddard and Lydia Bradey had to work out what to do next.
Lydia Bradey says the options varied from heading back up into the Kora, the pilgrim's route around the Konka Range, attempting the South Ridge of Nyambo Konka, or climbing a different 5000m peak in that area.
Or, they could go somewhere new. This idea grew on them and they decided they needed a guide and interpreter to at least get them to the road end, near their new destination. A series of "lucky coincidences" presented them with Joey -- a bright, funny graduate student who spoke English well, "with a few entertaining slip-ups".
On 10 May they attempted to leave Ya'an by bus, before learning the Chinese government had put restrictions on foreigners travelling west of Ya'an, into West Sichuan, and on to Kangding. However, the "official official" word was that there were no real restrictions on foreigners' travel, Lydia says.
"We spent the whole morning driving to closed police departments and talking to car hire companies. At several points we were standing on the pavement with a lot of luggage wondering exactly what to do."
But they made it out of Ya'an after their guide found a taxi driver who, for a special fee, drove the climbers out of the city border.
There was another glitch when they arrived at their destination only to discover, having sent away their taxi driver, that the village had the right name but was not in the right location.
Eventually they found a car and got a ride to the next valley, travelling up a dramatic narrow gorge with 300-400m walls stretching along the way.
Carrying "ridiculously heavy packs" they set off on their way — passing planted fields, a tumbling mountain river, old wooden bridges and ancient houses along the way.
"With two head torches between the three of us, we carried our loads through another narrower impressive gorge of steep rock walls, crossing bridges made of simple slabs of wood over a metre wide."
They slept the night with a family in a village before setting out again.
Here eventuated a classic "lost-in-translation" about a place called "Grass Ocean". Penny and Lydia liked this description and had imagined huge open grass fields under the mountains. The next day they gained another 400m up to Grass Ocean — and realised it was a lake!
Joey left them at this point. Surrounded by rhododendrons beginning to bloom and gently draping beards of lichen, they had a gorgeous campsite. They had not been told that around the corner of the nearest hill there was a high summer camp with store huts in a large clearing at the confluence of two rivers at 3840m. The locals would stay there, leaving their horses and yaks to graze over the surrounding hills, while they made daily sorties climbing more than 1000m to find Caterpillar Fungus and grass grubs used in traditional Chinese medicine, "which earns them a significant amount of money even by our standards".
Having glimpsed the peaks, they knew their snow stakes, ice screws, crampons and second tools would be superfluous, so the climbers hid these.
"We took two 60m ropes, a light rock rack, a light ice axe, ski poles, and lots of slings for abseiling off rock bollards," Lydia says.
After days spent ‘getting there', they set off on the day of their summit bid at 7.30am, excited to climb.
"The weather was gorgeous, the best day of the trip. Scrambling up to the crest of the first ridge, we were chatting about what the peak was going to look like... And when we finally saw it, we were blown away with its steepness," Lydia says.
The peak rose about 600m from the surrounding terrain, a double summit split by a long couloir. The rock was multi-coloured and appeared from the distance to be of variable quality.
"Truthfully, I thought that if the rock was not good quality, and thus we were forced on to the steepest parts of the wall, we might struggle to climb this summit since we were carrying only a light rock rack," Lydia says.
"We decided to climb up the couloir splitting the two peaks to a small col. The couloir was full of unstable loose rock, semi-frozen; large boulders slid underneath our feet. We sheltered in the lee of the sides of the gully, breathing hard, moving slowly, constantly looking around at possible direct routes to the top. What was at the top was unknown until we got right on to the small col, but we expected a short wall of 100m plus to climb."
When they reached the col, to their surprise it was a simple scramble to the summit over grey limestone slabs.
"Low inversion cloud filled the valleys to the east, north and west, a sunlit white sea pierced by beautiful rocky ranges and in the farthest distance steep white peaks promising future adventures," says Lydia.
"It had to be one of the best summit views I've ever had."
