In September of 2005 , Ari Menitove, Pat Goodman, Chris Chitty and I traveled to the Qonglai Range of Sichuan Province. The goal of this trip was to explore and do first ascents in the Shuangqiao Valley. During our planning phase before we arrived in China, we had heard about an adjacent valley (Bipeng) that had only been easily accessible for two years because of a new access road. As the crow flies this valley is just on the other side of the ridge from our primary objectives, but the approach is from the other side of the range. This area was written up in the 2005 AAJ by Jon Otto, who had given us our info as well. When we got to China in mid-Sept, we met with Jon and saw more photos of this valley. With the prospect of at least 10 unclimbed 5000+ meter rock peaks, we deemed it worthy, and went there first.
We arrived at the trailhead in one day from Chengdu and stayed at a local hostel/guesthouse, and prepared to approach the next day and locate a camp. The weather was good the first day and we were impressed with the valley and it's offerings. We located a decent camp along the trail that goes up and over into the Changping Valley; right below one of the more striking peaks (peak 5202/Jiang Jun Feng) and a promising looking wall of granite spires. The weather was good for two or three days allowing us to set up camp and do recon as well as acclimatize. The north-east face of Peak 5202 was the obvious big objective for us and we planned to begin a line but bad weather set in. For the next five or six days we had rain, snow, and fog cover, which kept us either in our tents or under the boulder we were using as the cooking shelter.
When the weather began to clear on Sept 28th, Pat and I made a quick simul-solo ascent of Peak 5202 via the 3000 ft. NW buttress, a low angle fin of rock just to the left of a giant talus field. We carried a rope and some gear but never even put our climbing shoes on. Most of the climbing we did was scrambling, but there were a few steps with climbing up to about 5 .7. We climbed to the west summit, which we believe to be the tallest point on the massif. As it turned out this was also to be the best weather day we would have for the entire trip. Ari and Chris began a route on the NE Face and met up with a fair bit of loose rock and incipient features, interspersed with sections of good 5. 10-5. 1 1 climbing. They were climbing with no bolt kit and only a few pins, and ultimately would have needed more of an aid rack to continue on this line. They came down after frve pitches as the weather window was yet again closing. While Ari and Chris were climbing that day, Pat and I explored the wall of granite above camp and adjacent to Peak 5202. To our amazement this wall was made up of beautiful compact granite and covered with splitter cracks. Unfortunately though, the cracks were completely filled with dirt and grass. Cleaning even one pitch would have taken hours of work. We did find a few clean cracks on a detached pillar of granite at the base of the wall, and installed a set of anchors above three very good lines. Pat climbed the first splitter off-width crack to put the anchors in and we would return the next day to finish the other two. Unfortunately we wouldn't have the time or weather to get any cleaning done on the walls above. Bad weather set in and the rest of the trip was spent toiling in the squalor of our tents and cooking cave. Thanks to the AAC and Cascade Designs for their generous support of this trip.