Unclimbed Peaks in the Bipeng Valley of China.
November 2007Jon Sullivan and Liu Yong attempted the sharp ridge facing the camera on Longa Feng (5,250m), the peak on the left. The mountain to the right is known as Queen's Peak, also unclimbed.
McNeill-Nott Award recipient Jon Lane Sullivan reports on his attempts on unclimbed Peaks in the Bipeng Valley, Sichuan Province, China, with Liu Yong.
The Dragon’s Tooth (5250m), Northeast Ridge. This September, Liu Yong and I returned to the Bipeng Valley in the Sichuan Province of China. Our mission was to climb virgin peaks in the valley, our first target being The Dragon’s Tooth/ Longya Feng (5,250m).
We arrived at the head of the valley on September 20 and stayed near the trailhead (Shanghaizi) for several days to acclimatize. There is a small cabin near the river that doubles as a guesthouse. The owner (Yangerge) and his family will cook three meals a day and provide plenty of valley info for you while you stay here. It is also possible to arrange horses and porters from here to help ferry your gear up the valley.
By September 23 we had established our camp at an altitude of 4,228m, poised at the base of the northeast ridge of The Dragon’s Tooth. We left our tent at 5 a.m. ready for a fast and light ascent. We were equipped with a standard trad rack and twin 60m ropes. We navigated a boulder field and scrambled up fourth-class terrain before roping up. The first roped pitch of the northeast ridge comprised of loose rock and moss (5.8). This landed us on a perfect belay ledge with spectacular views of the north and east faces. From here a perfect granite splitter (5.10) going from hands to thin hands led to a featureless slab and blocky overhang. This was a spectacular pitch but slightly difficult at elevation with a pack on.
From here our route dead-ended. The rock was a featureless vertical slab that didn’t even look like it could be aided. The east face was a series of blocky overhangs with minimal features; the north face had some climbable features and broken ledges but was caked with snow and ice. It looked as if we were about three pitches from gaining the main ridge that would lead to the summit. We were at an altitude of 4,700 meters before deciding to rappel down.
Peak 5138m, North Face. After Liu Yong and I finished our attempt on the Dragon’s Tooth we tried the peak just south of it. The north face looked easy enough despite the fact we did not have crampons or ice axe. We figured we would bring a light rack and one twin rope and use a running belay. We kick-stepped in hard snow and plunged our fingers into the slope in lieu of the proper equipment. There were several fifth-class rock maneuvers made more difficult with the wet and snowy nature of the rock. We were moving fast and having a good time until eventually our shoes and gloves were soaked all the way through. A freak blizzard blew in and forced us to retreat. The storm only lasted for about one hour, but it was enough to force us to decide against pushing for the summit with our lack of equipment. We reached an elevation of 4,900 meters.