A wild range in western China is an unpredictable epic
Text by Cliff Ransom; Photograph by Jimmy Chin
It was early in the day when the storm moved in.
Kasha Rigby, Ingrid Backstrom, Guila Monega, and Jimmy Chin had been
creeping up the West Ridge of Reddomaine, an obscure 20,000-foot peak
in western China, since dawn. They had just belayed up a steep section
of rock when the clouds thickened and the snow started blowing hard.
Bad visibility became terrible. “We huddled around,” Backstrom said,
“and said to ourselves, ‘you know, conventional wisdom would say we
should go down now.’”
Considering where they were, prudence would not have been out of place. Reddomaine is the westernmost peak of the Minya
Konka massif, a collection of knife-edged summits that ring China’s
24,790-foot Gunga Shan. In recent years the region has seen a marked
increase in climbing expeditions, driven in part by a looser permitting
process within China and a growing trend among elite climbers to favor
smaller, more technical and unclimbed peaks over 8,000 meter behemoths.
It has also seen a concurrent rise in morbid headlines—the rough
terrain and unpredictable weather conspire to make the mountains of
western China particularly avalanche prone. In 2006 Christine Boskoff
and Charlie Fowler were lost on the nearby Genyen Massif. In June 2009,
Johnny Copp and Micah Dash were swept away by a massive slide on Mount
Edgar, just one peak east of Reddomaine.
While the area’s troubled history was on the minds of the Reddomaine foursome—“We’d just passed though the town where my friend [Copp] was cremated a few months before, ” Chin says—it
was not enough to overcome the pull of the mountains. Two hundred feet
after turning back, the group huddled up once more.
“We decided, well, the weather’s bad, but not that bad. And we’re
behind schedule, but not that behind. Let’s just see how it goes,”
Backstrom recalls. So with graupel beating down on their tightly drawn
hoods, the team again set off into the clouds.
“You could look at [our decision] and say, ‘Oh my
God, they ignored all the signals,’” Rigby says. It was, she says, a
calculated risk: “We had been watching the weather patterns for days,
and we were a really strong team.” And, it’s worth noting, the climb is
not the most challenging in the range.
As the group picked its way up the west
ridge, the weather did not improve, but true to their calculations, it
did not worsen. The route alternated between gradual snow slopes and
steep rocky sections. A cornice overhung a sheer face to the left and
the slope dropped away thousands of feet to the right. Massive bus-eating crevasses and deep snow slowed their ascent.
The team developed a routine - each climber out front, would probe for
crevasses, break trail until they were exhausted and then rotate to the
back of the line.
“At first our turn around time was 3PM then 4PM
then 5PM,” says Chin. But the team summited nonetheless, with all but
Rigby soloing up the final 100-foot ice bulge to the top. They were not
the first to summit this mountain, but they would be the first to
descend on skis. With the light dwindling, the climbers clicked into their ski bindings and
began downhill. What took them 12 hours to climb took three to descend.
As they emerged from the clouds a thousand feet above their high camp,
they faced a full moon, a starlit sky, and boot top powder all the way
to their tent. So much for conventional wisdom—this time.
Amazing, well done him.
Posted by: Antigua resort | May 17, 2011 at 06:43 AM
Looks amazing, gotta try it someday!
Posted by: Stop Smoking | May 16, 2011 at 11:18 AM
I would love to be there!
Posted by: children holidays | May 16, 2011 at 10:56 AM
I wonder how it feels like being above the clouds..
Posted by: market ideas | May 16, 2011 at 05:53 AM
the view is amazing..
Posted by: mobile marketing | May 16, 2011 at 05:52 AM
Beautiful view!
Posted by: Global brands | May 16, 2011 at 05:51 AM
I wish I was there.
Posted by: top ten | May 16, 2011 at 05:48 AM
Great view!
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Posted by: Generic Cordarone | May 13, 2011 at 07:02 AM
Wow - what an image. It must be truly excilarating sitting at the top of that mountain, and with all that fresh air. I can almost smell the clean oxygen.
Thanks for the read - I really need to travel more!
Posted by: freelance graphic designer | May 12, 2011 at 11:10 AM
Beautiful mountain!
Posted by: Herbalife | May 10, 2011 at 04:24 AM
looks amazimg, well done him!!
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Posted by: Nike Frees | May 08, 2011 at 09:06 PM
It must be amazing to be above the clouds, very good story, well done him..
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Posted by: Wilmayxi042 | April 27, 2011 at 07:37 AM
i never knew how beautiful china was. that picture of the mountain is truly amazing.
Posted by: gps coordinates | April 27, 2011 at 03:57 AM
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Posted by: ズファジラン | April 25, 2011 at 07:30 AM
The "descent" was completed during separate visits, using airlifts, and they did the bottom half first, and the top half later. And this mountain had been skied before. Surely claiming a first descent takes some disregard for pride in exchange for Red Bull's marketing campaign.
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Posted by: Crystalvie374 | April 24, 2011 at 02:56 AM
Truly amazing control and POWER. Anyone who downplays this man's skill is clearly ignorant and should never comment on something they are looking to merely
belittle. I mean shit, if it's so easy, why don't you do it?? I don't ski a lot, but I have before and I know how much control and dexterity it takes just to weave back and forth, but he is teetering on gravity's edge and never loses control - incredible. Mad props to Karnicar as he is the greatest ever to hit the slopes. Thanks for posting!
Posted by: Crystalvie374 | April 24, 2011 at 02:53 AM
That mountain top view is amazing. How can you not feel one with nature seeing that. Now I understand why some people spend there whol life trying to climb Mt Everest.
Posted by: Jose | April 21, 2011 at 10:47 PM
Wow what an amazing picture. Thank you so much for sharing this blog.
-Syed-
Posted by: ROI Unlimited | April 16, 2011 at 04:25 PM
What a courageous skier, I wouldn't fancy skiing down the side of that mountain!
Posted by: Parliament | April 07, 2011 at 04:43 PM
It has also seen a concurrent rise in morbid headlines—the rough terrain and unpredictable weather conspire to make the mountains of western China particularly avalanche prone. In 2006 Christine Boskoff and Charlie Fowler were lost on the nearby Genyen Massif. In June 2009, Johnny Copp and Micah Dash were swept away by a massive slide on Mount Edgar, just one peak east of Reddomaine.
Posted by: orjin krem | March 26, 2011 at 06:31 AM