The Unclimbed China Expedition

The Unclimbed China Expedition team, composed of New Zealand climbers Jo Kippax and Sean Waters, traveled in 2004 to the remote regions of western Sichuan to attempt two unexplored and unclimbed peaks in the seldom-visited Daxue Shan Range: Longemain (6,294 m) and Daddomain (6,380 m). This amazing mountain landscape is in the ancient province of Kham, where the eastern edge of the enormous Tibetan Plateau undergoes a final, gigantic upheaval before plunging down into the cloud-filled basins of China.

We originally got our start as the Unclimbed Tibet Expedition. However, as we got close to blast-off, the launch pad got rockier and rockier. We had intended to acclimatize to altitude in Nepal, but the news that Maoist rebels had blockaded Kathmandu sent us racing to the travel agents a week before we departed New Zealand.

We managed to scrape together seats bound for Chengdu in the Chinese province of Sichuan, where we hoped to find somewhere high enough to gain some acclimatization before we headed to Lhasa, Tibet. Just before boarding the flight, however, our Tibetan Mountaineering Association agent rang to say our permits had been canceled. At least two illegal expeditions into eastern Tibet had caused a furor in the sensitive Chinese military and consequently, the East had been closed. Hours of emailing and phoning around the globe, trying to arrive at some compromise, came to nothing, and suddenly we were all dressed up with nowhere to go!