Rilong Day 1

We left at 11am from Chengdu enroute to Rilong, a small village about 6 hours drive away within Sichuan province. Since we would be passing the mountainous region in winter, we had to leave later so that the ice/snow on the road would melt by then. We had to travel pass an earthquake aftermath region (I think) at the initial stretch. The road was very bad even for the 4 wheel drive jeep that we were in.

A huge rock that fell off the mountain during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

During the 6 hour journey, we had nice mountainous views. The moon was rising too. The highest point we reached was about 4,400m before driving back down to about 3,200m at Rilong village.

The sun about to set behind the mountains at this time.

We saw lots of yak along the way too. They literally roam freely along the steep slopes.

Finally, we saw the mountain that we would attempt in a week; Siguniang or Four Sisters’ Peak. The mountain is the second peak from the left, which was also the third highest, at about 5,300m. Our group photo for participants in the ice-climbing technical mountaineering course with Kim Boon. One of our seniors joined us again because he wanted to get more ice-climbing experience.

An exciting journey ahead of us.