It's not just another climbing route!
It's a tower in China

The Thumb: Happy New Year! (6 pitches, 6a+)

Yesterday was the first day we climbed a tower of limetsone. It rose from the rice and vegetable fields of rural China. We rode a crowded mini-bus just a handful of kilometers to be dropped off at the tourist spot called Butterfly Spring. It was the weekend and hoards of Chinese tourists rode bikes along the scenic rode and gawked at the magical views. The buses and trucks and cars streamed past as well, constantly honking and swerving around the biking hoards. We crossed through the quiet farmers tending thier crops and stood below the overhanging, colorful wall. The wall was well equipped with closely-spaced modern bolts and two-bolt belay anchors. The climbing was steep, but not too hard, and I struggled up some sections with my sore finger. Szu-ting made short work of an awkward bolted off-width crack nearing the top of the tower. The crack was razor sharp and the exposure was drastic but she nonethless escape upward without adding blood to the hand-eating fissure.

From the top of the tower the constant honking and tractor rumble fell away, and we were able to finally look out across the landscape of endless towers with the Li River weaving a ribbon a life throughout. Tourists and locals biked and laughed along below us and further, rice farmers swept their crop thin across concrete roofs to dry it in the patchy sun of the afternoon. We took it all in from the summit not much wider than a basketball court and then returned to the edge to begin our rappels to the ground. The anchor was pieced together and the strands of rope and webbing shown the wear of sun and rain. We added a caribiner to the mess, threaded our rope through it, and decended through knife-blade limestone and vertical jungle to the next, and much better, abseil anchor below.

China is a very new place for me to be travelling. Culturally it is unlike anything I have seen. There appears to be a great disparity between rich and poor. Though is seems that the rural people live simple and slow lives that have allowed them to escape the many trappings of the modern automobile and information driven society we have embraced in the west. By the way people drive and honk incessently here it appears cars may be fairly new to many of these villages, cell phones and the internet even more so. As the world continues to become more international, as cultures continue to melt into one another it gives me some sort of solace to see old Chinese farmers shucking rice grains with a wooden, hand-crank contraption.

Each night we explore the alleys and streets of Yang Shuo; it if a tourists destionation for not only westerners but for many Chinese from neighboring cities. There are thousands of resturants and craftman shops. There are western bars and hotels and pizza cafes and street vendors selling fruits and whole chickens and tea and deserts and cotton candy made with a bicycle tire and a wooden tub. Szu-ting translates menus, and street signs, and advertisements for me. I am beginning to learn words and phrases in Chinese which I forget and relearn daily. As I begin to understand how the language is put together I begin to understand the immediate and stark differences to English and I am even further impresses by Chinese speakers that have mastered the English language. I am not only thankful, but truly impressed by Szu-ting's speed and agility in daily translation; for it has allowed me to more fully appreciate the place. A place that continues to captivate my western mind.

Photos: 1) The Thumb; our route went basically right up the center of this colorful, vegetated tower. 2)Yang Shuo town and the myraid limestone towers beyond. 3)Looking out the round windows from "Sleeping On Clouds" lookout in Yang Shuo Municapal Park.