Ice climbing in Shuangqiao Valley, Sichuan, China

Ice climbing in Shuangqiao Valley, Sichuan, China December 28, 2005- January 15, 2006 Introduction and travel info Route 1 & 2 Route 3 Recognizance of the valley and rest day in Rilong city Route 4 Route 5 Route 6 The Tibetan Wedding Route 7 Route 8 Wolong Panda Reserve Maps & GPS coordinates Grading Publications
Route 3, WI3, 70 m The next day was New Years Eve and we thus decided to take another easy day climbing a short route close to the guest house. In this way we could get home early and celebrate the New Year. Route 3 (WI3) seen from the valley road.	Although the route looked like it was easy to access, we had to go through a lot of scrubs with sticking pikes on them - not nice! However, we finally reached the ice which was an easy and short WI3 route. Martin and Hans belaying Ricka and Carsten,
I began leading on the left with Ricka on my right. I rushed up the ice, to get into a nice position for shooting pictures.... Ricka leading route 3. Click on the picture if you want to see a movie of Ricka climbing (requires installation of Quicktime7, which you can download for free here)	We then set up two top ropes and played around climbing with one or no axe, which was quite funny. And another shot of Ricka....
It often amazes me how structured the ice is when you take a close look at it and it was thus possible to climb the pitch without axes. Good training as it forces you to focus on the foot work, which in the end it the path to success in all kinds of climbing! Hit the ice and make that axe stick!	A small group of climbers from Chengdu had arrived the guest house. They had a few days of because of the New Year, which I found quite amazing - it is a Christian holiday! Well, in Chengdu we also saw a lot of signs saying "Merry Christmas" which I found even more amazing. But Jeffry and Charles explained to us that the Chinese had adopted these holidays as they newer let down a chance to celebrate! A local roasting the freshly slaughtered lamb.
We were invited by the Chengdu group to join them for a roasted lamb. The lamb was slaughtered just outside of the guest house, marinated with a hot sauce and then roasted on open fire. Yum Yum - extremely delicious! Martin and Charles enjoying a leg of lamb.	After the roast feast the locals began playing loud Tibetan music - it was time to dance! It was quite clear that we could not escape the dancing part, but luckily the Chengdu locals were not much better at it than us. In contrary, the daughter of the owners of the guest house was dancing very beautifully, and she thus led the dance while we copied here moves as well as we could. What a New Year! The daughter of the guest house owners leading the tibetan dance.