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A One Way Trip Of Indefinite Duration
This has been in the works for some time, and it has been a great struggle for me to refrain from posting here in advance and getting people ready for it, but I figured a post without pictures isn't much of a post at all. Now I have pictures, so I have to start the thread. 
We left home Saturday night and enjoyed a full day of flying, napping, and driving to make it to Bend, Oregon, where my parents have reserved some condos for a family Thanksgiving. Morning (er, afternoon...) on Monday found us rolling out of bed with a nice view of some of the rest of nature's south-bound travelers. Signs in the snow indicate some parts of the golf course may be better fertilized than others next spring.
Tracy's mom and sister-in-law also joined us, and her mom brought along her old dog too. The light dusting of snowball-perfect snow in this part of Oregon is great fun!
To pass the time and spend as much as possible with Tracy's mom, sister-in-law, and nephew, we headed out today for a walk along the Deschutes River in Tumalo State Park. The trail isn't much to speak of, but it was enough to tire out Ryan, who enjoys a bit of a break from all this walking.
Tracy has my point-and-shoot for this trip, and she's working on learning to use it to record her perspective on life. Things are looking up! :rofl
So that's the beginning. Not much to look at so far, but December 1st we head to Beijing, China with a one way ticket and a plan to head south and bounce from country to country, hitting as much territory as we can between China and New Zealand. Hopefully somewhere along the line we'll be able to pick up some work and make enough money to live and move on to the next destinations, and eventually home! The trip is very loosely planned with an emphasis on the ability to do whatever we want along the way, and we've got an indefinite timetable, but we hope to be home again in six months or so!
We still have seven days in Oregon, so stick around for a few more updates before we head overseas.
We left home Saturday night and enjoyed a full day of flying, napping, and driving to make it to Bend, Oregon, where my parents have reserved some condos for a family Thanksgiving. Morning (er, afternoon...) on Monday found us rolling out of bed with a nice view of some of the rest of nature's south-bound travelers. Signs in the snow indicate some parts of the golf course may be better fertilized than others next spring.
Tracy's mom and sister-in-law also joined us, and her mom brought along her old dog too. The light dusting of snowball-perfect snow in this part of Oregon is great fun!
To pass the time and spend as much as possible with Tracy's mom, sister-in-law, and nephew, we headed out today for a walk along the Deschutes River in Tumalo State Park. The trail isn't much to speak of, but it was enough to tire out Ryan, who enjoys a bit of a break from all this walking.
Tracy has my point-and-shoot for this trip, and she's working on learning to use it to record her perspective on life. Things are looking up! :rofl
So that's the beginning. Not much to look at so far, but December 1st we head to Beijing, China with a one way ticket and a plan to head south and bounce from country to country, hitting as much territory as we can between China and New Zealand. Hopefully somewhere along the line we'll be able to pick up some work and make enough money to live and move on to the next destinations, and eventually home! The trip is very loosely planned with an emphasis on the ability to do whatever we want along the way, and we've got an indefinite timetable, but we hope to be home again in six months or so!
We still have seven days in Oregon, so stick around for a few more updates before we head overseas.
John Borland
www.morffed.com
www.morffed.com
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Cuong
Today was spent touring the Metolius climbing gear factory in Bend. We did a few other things too, but for a climber, this is like a little kid visiting a theme park.
Here's a rack loaded with strips of cam lobes, freshly milled and ready for individual separation. If you're unfamiliar with climbing equipment, which I assume most of the world is, these cams can be found completed here: http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/power_cam.html
Here a tumbler loaded with small rocks smooths out the rough edges of the freshly milled metal, taking off the burrs and such. These devices shown are wedged or cammed into cracks in the rock while climbing and the rope clipped to them to stop a fall.
This machine was equally cool... new and old gear alike are tossed in this vibrating ring full of small balls of metal and a polishing fluid. The bouncing action rolls and rotates them for a while, and when they come out they're bright and shiny!
Here's a jumbled bin of Metolius curve nuts. These blocks of metal are slotted into small constrictions in cracks while climbing, and believe it or not they can safely hold a LOT of force! They've saved many lives.
Each carabiner is inspected at least three times and tested to half its rated strength. A certain number are tested to complete failure, a process which didn't happen to be going on while we were touring, sadly.
I still feel like a kid that just had the experience of a lifetime. Call me a climber I guess.
www.morffed.com
:lurk
Today was uneventful, but I've got some shots still from yesterday for you all! Tracy and I headed out to Smith Rock State Park to aim for a route I tried five years back and never completed. At the time I got lost on the rock, went off route, and climbed another route that was equally good, but didn't make it to the top of the formation. This time, armed with better beta, we followed the right track and topped out after five pitches on "Wherever I May Roam" 5.9. Here's Tracy on the third pitch.
And again topping out on the last hold of the route, with the Crooked River heading off into the distance far below.
This is I believe a 47 image stitch of most of the park from the towering top of the main Smith Rock Group. A majority of the climbing centers on the walls on the right side of the rocks at the base of the picture, but there's routes all over every feature in the area! Climbers come from all over the world to climb here, so we feel pretty blessed to be enjoying some warm sun at the top of these massive columns. Tiny in the distance just left of center and almost reaching the horizon line of the hills in the background is the Monkey Face Tower, atop which I proposed to my now-wife Tracy two years and two days prior to this shot!
A climber works through the moves high above the ground on "Moondance" 5.11c, spotlighted in the last rays of sunlight to strike this wall this evening. I cheated and cloned out another climber below him.
We rapped off as the wind picked up and weather went a bit sour, wrapping up another wonderful day at Smith Rock. My last shots of the evening are Tracy following me down to ground level again.
Hope you enjoy the shots!
www.morffed.com
Love it. The pano's were incredible. The detail is to die for. What kit did you use on the 47 shot stitch?
The trip to Metolius factory would be cool. I do a little metal polishing of small parts using walnut shells. The same thing you'd find at a gunsmith for polishing brass shells. Amazing what they will do for small parts--makes them look brand new regardless of what's on them.
We catch a shuttle into downtown. Not that we know where it winds up or where we are going, but having been directed to three different buses by helpful locals, we picked one and went with it. Shortly after disembarking on the side of a road in a dark Beijing we learn to settle on a price before taking a bicycle ride when a local wants 50 American dollars for bringing us to a hotel that is not where we wanted to go. I talk him down considerably on both his price and the room at the hotel, but it's not a happy compromise. We settle in for the night in a comfy room at least, a blessing after the day's long hours of traveling.
The next morning finds us wandering the streets of Beijing, walking several miles with our fully loaded packs and reinforcing the previous lesson about the perceived value of a bicycle ride before we finally find the hostel we are looking for.
This place is sweet! Check out the Wangfujing Youth Hostel if you ever stay in Beijing! Can't recommend it enough.
So this brings us up to yesterday, when after all our walking we decided we weren't done yet and headed out to see the Forbidden City. Some indefinitely huge period of time ago an emporer built this entire walled city with a moat around it for his palace, blocking access to the rest of the world and making everything inside really really awesome. Must have taken quite an ego, but the results are pretty impressive. These days the Forbidden City has been turned into an enormous museum and flocks of people both foreign and Chinese alike line up at the gates to check the place out.
Stepping through the massive gates of the forbidden city, we find ourselves inside a huge courtyard with a small stream flowing across the middle. In the distance on all sides are more high walls blocking line of sight to the rest of the palace, so we figure we'll take one wall and follow it around the whole place, seeing everything.
The construction of this place is really impressive, with incredible details adorning everything down to the rafters. The size of these doors is amazing too, with an opening large enough to drive a city bus through.
The museum is filled with relics and artifacts of ancient China of all sorts, from weapons to sun-blockers to astronomical instruments and board games. It takes us several hours of examining all this stuff to realize that we haven't touched a fraction of what is here, and that to see it all would take far more than an entire day.
We're on the third enormously massive courtyard lines with rooms of museum artifacts when we come to this realization. We scope out the other end of the complex and decide to skim over most of the stuff here to go see a few things we're interested in.
A massive botanical garden filled with all sorts of flora and giant limestone blocks fills us with awe, especially considering that the effect it has right now is massively tempered by the cold of winter. To see this place when it's actually GREEN has to be AMAZING. We wander through and set our aim back toward where we began as the sun starts sinking lower in the sky.
One disappointing factor about Beijing is the amount of smog, always present in a city of this size. As evening drew on, it seemed to get thicker, denying any chance at having a blue sky in my shots.
There's more uploading, I'll pause here for a bit and post again shortly.
www.morffed.com
The throne room at the Forbidden City is pretty spectacular, but visitors can't get in and walk around so this is the best photo I got. Stuck with the light I had I'm afraid.
Heading out of the Forbidden City having only seen a fraction of what is inside, we stepped out in front of Tienanmen Square and scoped in a few sights we've seen quite a number of times in world media. Soldiers stand at guard over the moat with Chairman Mao perpetually watching overhead.
Our last stop of the day on the way back to the hostel was the strip of local vendors serving all sorts of foods, and some things that may not really be food. Giving in to temptation, I ordered up and again paid way too much for a bit of snake meat and a starfish. I'm convinced every person in Beijing is out for every dime you have. One guy at our hostel was taken for over 2000 yuan (something near 300 American dollars) for a cup of tea in a popular local scam. We're looking forward to leaving the city and finding places where people are real!
Got more uploading still, this time of the Great Wall, so those will hit the forums sometime!
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We picked up a tour from our hostel for a fairly decent price to head to a portion of the Great Wall and check the place out. It's a cheaper tour than others, so instead of starting in one town and hiking the wall to another, we're just driving up and wandering a portion of the wall in the mountains of Mutianyu.
We drive for a few hours before we make it out of the city, and in no time at all we're in the mountains and stopping at a parking lot a thousand feet below the wall itself. Catching a faint glimpse of the blocky parapet high above strikes a bit of excitement, and we start off hiking up to the wall. Most of our group chose to use the tram to get up and a toboggan run to get down, but that seemed a bit wrong to us.
Having reached the Great Wall of China at last, the top priority is obvious: get a picture climbing it!
We quickly find out that the great wall is comprised mostly of millions of stair steps taking us up and down along the mountainous ridges that formerly separated China and Mongolia.
Every few hundred feet along the wall stands a guard tower, which contains a couple hallways and an empty room.
A window in one of the guard towers looks out over a steep sided valley where you can see the wall ascending the other side and moving off along the mountain tops.
Of course a trip to the Great Wall wouldn't be complete without a nice self portrait of Tracy and I to go on the wall.
A steep brick stairwell leads visitors into one of the guard towers on an uphill section of the wall.
Tracy descends some steps toward the entry to another of the guard houses.
A little leaning gets you this magnificent panorama from the wall. The left portion heads over that knoll and drops into a steep saddle before ascending another peak, and the right side wanders over to the ridgeline you can see there, then descends it into the valley and can barely be made out ascending the opposite side just left of center to a small saddle, after which a few guard towers can be made out as it takes off along the mountaintops.
Canon emplacements are permanently aimed out over the ridges and valleys below the wall, ready to face an enemy that never came.
Tracy ascends the narrow stairway accessing the rooftop of a guard tower.
While the wall isn't really all that tall, it's easy to see that it would be a nearly insurmountable obstacle to an invading force, especially given the advantages the defending army would have over those trying to get over the wall from below.
I can't help but have a tiny bit of regret that we're visiting this place in the winter rather than when everything is green, but it's an awesome experience either way!
You're caught up now, so we're off to have a few more adventures worthy of sharing!
www.morffed.com
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This is the kind of image that will be with you a lifetime. Excellent.
Well to be honest, Beijing kind of isn't much fun. The Wangfujing youth hostel is absolutely awesome, and the people we've met who WEREN'T trying to royally rip us off were really cool, but overall the experience is a bit lame. So we pondered and prayed and picked Chengdu for our next destination, and got some tickets. Tracy hasn't ever been on a train before, so what better introduction than spending a day and a half on China's cheapest sleeper?
We pack up our stuff and kill as much of the day at the hostel as we can before we introduce ourselves to the Beijing subway, which it turns out is quite a simple, efficient, and CHEAP way to get around. Too bad we missed that earlier when trying to find our hostel... Anyway, we eventually find our way to Beijing's West train station, which gives an impression more of a castle than an international transportation hub. We squint through the heavy smog, and yes indeed, it is a train station.
Dropping our bags off in the lockboxes rented there, we kill some more time wandering the narrow hutongs (alleyways) around the station. This is where we've found all the down-to-earth culture that we've wanted while we're here. Here a woman sells a positively enormous pile of fruit in quantities which if it were handed out one piece at a time to every person in sight, would still leave plenty left over.
A steaming pot of what I know is delicious food sits in an open window along an exceptionally narrow hutong.
Even December's chill hasn't necessitated a place indoors for some of the more intrepid street people. This lady maintains her abode in a highway underpass.
Eventually driven inside by the setting sun and progressively colder temperatures, we settle in to wait for the train. The hustle and clamor of this station cannot be captured in a picture, but I gave it a shot. Imagine if you will one hallway providing a transportation hub for the world's most populated country in one of the world's most populated cities.
More to come momentarily, I believe....
www.morffed.com
Rolling along for a day and two nights doesn't give you a lot of pictures of the countryside, but you didn't miss much.
Early hours find us rolling into the Chengdu train station, where it's fairly simple to catch a taxi with a driver who takes us on a speedy adventure dodging buses and pedestrians and drops us off with a few jabbering words that I can't understand, but I take to indicate that he can't find the hostel we're looking for, but the map on our pocket brochure says it's around here somewhere. We thank him, and our brief prayers are answered shortly thereafter as we walk right up to the alley where we'll reside for the next few days. Incredibly painless compared to finding our place in Beijing! Prices are cheaper here than Beijing too, and a promise to not use the Air Conditioner gets us an extra 20 yuan off our room's price.
We hit the shower and grab some delicious and cheap food, and then head out to see what we can find. First off, a miraculous thing called a "Panda Card" which costs only 20 yuan (about $3.00 American) will get us into a number of local attractions for free, including the temple just up the road. We head there first, noting that for the first time since landing in China, we're able to see the blue sky overhead.
The Wu Hou Temple proves to be the relief we've been hoping for. We're immediately awed as we enter a system of courtyards around a small pond where locals are performing martial arts routines, or simply walking around enjoying the peace.
Winter hasn't hit as hard here, and the flowers are still blooming on this bush.
We're continually awed as we wander around the temple complex, which largely consists of beautiful trails winding through a large variety of gardens and greenery. Locals stops us and ask to take their photos with us, and the place is, on the whole, worlds different from Beijing. I think we'll like it here.
In the entire day, nobody has pestered us to buy anything, and we haven't been ripped off yet. We're stoked.
A bright star backlights the leaves of a Ginko Biloba in the courtyard of a small museum building.
An entire garden holds hundreds of artfully sculpted living masterpieces, thoroughly convincing Tracy that we'll have to grow a few of these ourselves, someday. I contemplate the climate controlled and moose-defended environment it would take to do that in Alaska, and agree completely.
The yellow leaves of this bonsai (never did learn the Chinese term for these tree sculptures) shed gently in front of a small pagoda.
So to summarize this post, based on our very limited experience, if you ever go to China, try to stay out of Beijing.
And on that happy note, we're out for a bit. Hope you're all enjoying the pics!
www.morffed.com
We want to start in Thailand and work our way over to Europe. skipping the middle east of course... don't want to get caught in that mess. We have a friend that lives in China, so we are definitely gonna meet up with her. I can't remember where she's from in China off the top of my head though. She's been teaching us Chinese. Ni Hao! (Hello!) Yep, I'm already fluent.. haha jk
Keep the photos and narrative coming!
Cuong
now, except through other peoples eyes.
I was in Hong Kong and Macau last year and briefly crossed the border into China, but for health reasons probably won't fly again, so I eagerly awaite your postings and pictures, have a great journey.
Wandaling.
Heading out here today so I can finally look at your thread again
Glad to see you guys are getting so much fun in!
I Live at http://www.alaskamountainforum.com
Thanks again for the wonderful comments everyone!
Our hostel here in Chengdu is fairly decent, with delicious meals feeding both Tracy and I for less than three US dollars. The whole place seems to be completely empty of heaters, however, and with temps in the forties and fifties it's a bit chilly to sit down and eat dinner. The locals don't hassle us much except a little begging, and everything is generally more relaxed.
Yesterday we went and toured the local panda breeding research facility, which contains a whole zoo of both Red Pandas and Giant Pandas. That's all the pictures I've got this update, so here's some cuddly cuteness that's slightly lacking in narrative!
A red panda sits on one of the perches in its massive enclosure.
These guys pretty much never sat still, and in the low smoggy morning light it was really hard to get a decent shot without motion blur.
Luckily we had plenty of time, so we sat and fired off a few hundred frames so we'd get a couple sharp ones.
The red pandas in their wanderings would walk right up to the wall we were on, but they'd glance at us and never hold still for a second! I guess I should have cranked to 1600 ISO, but I was just hoping for some good shots regardless.
These little guys' tree climbing ability is interesting. They go both up and down the trees headfirst, although coming down seems a little awkward for them sometimes.
The giant pandas didn't do much moving of any sort except with their jaws.
Their method of downclimbing their perches is quite similar to the way little kids go down stairs sometimes.
Caught a bit of a halfhearted and very slow wrestling match:
If only I had the energy to go get something to eat...
Eating is a panda's specialty of course. I got quite a few different showing shots of this guy.
And besides eating, there's napping....
Come to think of it, I'm not really sure what makes life in captivity so stressful for these guys that they have trouble mating.
And on that note, we're packing up and heading south again, this time to Yangshuo. More photos to come sometime!
www.morffed.com
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It's warmer here in the south part of China, and we're losing track of the days - a personal mark of success I've noted in life.
Sometime the next morning we pull off onto a passing track and let a freight train go by.
Our aged and faded train stretches around a corner as I lean out the window for a shot from the outside.
As the day wore on we skimmed our map of China, unable to find any of the small towns and villages we were passing along any of the rail lines marked. One of the locals riding along with us points to an area near Chongqing, which is alarmingly closer to Chengdu, our departure point, than it is to Guilin, our destination. We wonder whether we're stuck on the train for another night, and it's a relief that apart from the monotony of vibrations, tunnels, and passing scenery, it doesn't really matter. We roll on.
Then out of nowhere and accompanied by the screeching of tortured metal the train slams to a halt from its cruising speed, tossing passengers into their bunks and handrails. After sitting still on the tracks for a bit I lean out the window to check out our situation. Zooming in, it's evident that there's a large dump truck filled with bricks stalled on the tracks just ahead of the train.
Kelsey and Shasta gave us a bit of a translation book from English to Mandarin, which became a popular attraction once Tracy pulled it out. The locals had a lot of fun pronouncing English and taking on the impossible task of teaching us Mandarin in one sitting.
We arrive in Guilin as the sun goes down, and by the time we leave the station and walk half a block it's quite dark outside. Instead of trying to find and catch a bus to Yangshuo in an unfamiliar and blackened town, we pull out the pamphlets for hostels in Guilin that we had nabbed for just such a situation, and wander under the tracks and past a few shops in the direction the little dotted arrow indicates on the small map. Shops in China seem to be supplied according to whichever part of town they're in, and along this road we wander past at least a dozen selling identical automotive parts until we finally reach the gate leading us down a darkened winding street to the Wada hostel, a welcoming and accommodating place I'd recommend to anyone visiting Guilin.
Morning found the hostel staff walking us out to a bus where we handed over our money and began driving through some of the coolest terrain on earth. Massive "karsts" loom out of the landscape all around us and shoot straight to the sky with steep limestone sides covered by vegetation. Mixed with this splendor are the Chinese B-movies showing constantly on the bus' television, to temper the awesomeness some.
We make it to Yangshuo something like two days after leaving Chengdu, and are immediately accosted by vendors. No I don't want a postcard, and persistent bothering is not going to make me buy one. We shoulder our packs and brush past dozens of locals offering us lodging, wandering around until we locate a hostel recommended to us by a fellow traveler. This place is hideously commercialized, but at the same time, it has the best selection of loot to hand out to our friends at home that we've seen yet. I've still got a sort of mixed feeling about the town, since it's undeniably incredible in the scenery department, but also heavily commercialized to a point comparable to Las Vegas. Overall though, the pros outweigh the cons, and once you get good at saying "Tsein tsein, boo yaw," (thank you, not interested) to every local you pass by, the place is really quite cool.
One edge of town borders the Li River which, amid offers from boat operators to take us out for a tour, quite nicely exemplifies the incredible scenery. I have noted with a bit of disappointment that direct sunlight has been distinctly lacking since we landed in China, however.
A weaver works on a piece for her shop shelves in the main street containing most of the shops.
China's ever-present smog lightly obscures a looming karst over the heavily signed streets of Yangshuo.
We find the local climber's hostel after spending one night in a more drinking-and-partying oriented haven and quickly determine that this is the place for us. Prices are roughly $7.30 USD per night for a room with a double bed and a shower, and the girl at the desk points us to a sweet unglamorous noodle shop where a delicious meal that stuffs both of us lightly touches our tiny pocketbook at $2.30. With a bit of restraint (and not counting buying souvenirs for all our friends at home
Wandering out after dark this evening is another disappointment for a calm-loving couple from rural Alaska, with lights flashing and loud music everywhere. Bars and dance clubs with brilliant neon signs jump out from places we've walked by a dozen times in daylight, and never noticed them at all. The music pulses vaguely through the walls of every building on this side of town, and we're told that this is nothing compared with the busy summer season when it's impossible to sleep before the bars close at 2am. Maybe it's a good thing we're here in the winter in spite of the cool temps and cloudy skies.
Tomorrow the plan is to head out of town and sample some of the local limestone climbing opportunities, which are known among climbers worldwide.
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Eventually rolling out of bed, we enjoy a leisurely breakfast and set out to see if we can hike anywhere in the wet and cold weather. Lily at the hostel points us downtown to the park, where we stroll up a worn and broken down limestone staircase and find a heavily polluted and vandalized pagoda at the top of a small karst tower overlooking downtown Yangshuo. The views are scenic, and the light rain has put a damper on the perpetual smog, revealing towers miles away to the horizon that couldn't be seen before. This hike is a bit disappointing however, so we wander along to the base of an even taller tower and finding a staircase leading partway up, set off into the jungle following some faint evidences of mankind's passage up the steep limestone buttress. We pull our way from tree to tree up the face, pausing briefly to stare down at the trail we had just hiked up the other tower, where a small pagoda offers rest for the weary about halfway up.
We reach the top of the tower, this one much less littered than the other with only a few food wrappers and cigarette butts half buried in the leafy debris. It's nicer here, the honking of cars and the annoying repetitive music of the theme park is much more distant. Maybe I've been spoiled by growing up in Alaska's practically untouched wilderness.
The next morning we rise to dry weather and set out to find some climbing. A woman who's been relentlessly offering us bicycles finally gets a piece of our wallet and we ride out of town on two well worn examples of said items. Local traffic really makes much more sense than the staunch rules of America, and we quickly adapt to just riding wherever we want on the highway, as long as something bigger and faster isn't competing for the same terrain.
It's a bit of a ride to the crag, and we roll past farmer's fields, smaller villages, roadside stands, and quite a number of the huge limestone towers before finally turning left down a dirt path across a rice field, just opposite a gigantic butterfly affixed to a cliff face, for some reason.
Following Chris is the lady accompanying him - I forgot her name shortly after learning it.
My favorite shot from the day, as she reaches a nice sized ledge and pauses briefly to chalk up.
Our plans at this point are fairly open. We've scoped out some cheap tickets to the Philippines in January though, and we may just be able to afford getting there and then back to the mainland in Bangkok, so we might be in town for a considerable amount of time. This means for at least this part of the trip, a lot of our photos will probably just be climbing.
www.morffed.com
This is an odd comment coming from a stranger, but I'm really proud of both of you for this total immersion. That pride comes from the memory of struggling to do it on a considerably smaller scale - so the compliment is both heart felt and from (limited) experience.
I think the picture of Tracey sharing the translation book with the other passengers is what brought that thought out for me.
:lurk
My roommate and I are planning on doing a trip similar to this in aprox. 3-4 years.. That way school will be out of the way, and we can take our time.
Keep the photos coming!
Lately we're not doing much but climbing, so here's a couple climbing shots for you all!
Yesterday brought us miles down a dirt road to a wall overlooking the Li River. The place is covered in dust from the passing traffic, but the features are awesome so they rather make up for it. We just did one climb, a 5.10 with a rather inappropriate name, evidently the first ascent party didn't like it as much as we did.
This climb was a bit dirty of course, but one interesting thing was the softness of the rock. The dust Tracy is covered in is from the rope rubbing over the limestone on the tufa and actually carving away the rock itself. It won't take too much traffic on this route before the holds are polished smooth.
Our view is magnificent from the anchors, of course, with the Li River providing an alternative avenue of transportation for other travelers, and China's heavy smog blurring the distant features of the landscape.
Today our bike ride brought us down a winding path through a couple villages and to a wall overlooking some farmland, away from anything remotely resembling hustle or bustle and quiet for the entire day, with only ourselves for company. Tracy's hand peeks out on a good hold as she tries to negotiate a roof in the middle of this 5.8.
And here's the rest of her one move later.
Every topout on this wall rewarded me with an awesome view, and with solid rock and decent temps and nobody else around, the day's climbing was very fulfilling. I climbed every established route on the wall before the sun went down.
As light fades on another day, we walk our bikes back across the rice fields to the road and wander on back into Yangshuo.
We've secured some tickets to the Philippines in early January, but for now there's still no plans to do much but climb ourselves into tiredness, rest, and repeat. Hope life is treating all of the rest of you as well!
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http://nikonic1.smugmug.com/