The Onsight Chronicles

Right now I am on assignment in China and what a very interesting assignment it has turned out to be!

On Friday (10th July) Leo Houlding (UK), Carlos Suarez (Spain) and Wang Jin Ming (China) succeeded in making the first ever ascent of main 600+ metre cliff on the West Face of Lotus Peak, aka the West Peak, of Mt Huashan.

Mt Huashan is one of the five sacred mountains in China; it is of major national and historical importance. The team of Berghaus sponsored climbers gained special permission to attempt the cliff which had seen several previous attempts in the past.

I abseiled down 160 metres and photographed the action higher on the route, some of it in the rain. I was mightily impressed by Leo’s leading; keeping his cool through a lot of hard, dodgy and run-out climbing. Carlos lead two hard pitches lower down but Leo took the lead for the rest of the route, being pressed for time to finish before dark.

On Saturday the local authorities hosted a magnificent celebratory dinner. I can’t fault the Chinese efficiency in producing a giant banner using a photo I’d taken on the mountain less than 24 hours earlier.

The climbers were presented with sashes and swords!

There has been a huge amount of media interest in this achievement over here. Already over 35 online sites have published reports of the news. Some of the links I’ve been sent are below. My pics are being widely seen!

http://www.xawb.com/gb/news/2009-07/12/content_1496487.htm
http://news.cnwest.com/content/2009-07/12/content_2214435.htm
http://epaper.xplus.com/papers/shxrb/20090712/n3.shtml
http://bbs.hsw.cn/redirect.php?tid=877885&goto=lastpost
http://www.shaanxi.cn/Html/2009-7-12/120139.Html
http://news.china.com.cn/chinanet/07news/
http://www.youxiake.com/?do=blog&event=spread&id=1495
http://news.xinmin.cn/rollnews/2009/07/12/2224680.html
http://www.sanqindaily.com/News/20090712/60202.html
http://www.xian-tourism.com:82/gate/big5/www.xian-tourism.com/article/?type=detail&id=13161
http://news.sina.com.tw/article/20090712/1909384.html
http://xa.hsw.cn/system/2009/07/12/050237862.shtml
http://sports.163.com/09/0711/17/5DV82C3I00052VFC.html
http://sports.qq.com/a/20090711/000326.htm
http://www.huashan16.com/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=272
http://www.shx.chinanews.com.cn/news/2009/0712/shx_chinanews_8401.shtml
http://bbs.hangzhou.com.cn/redirect.php?tid=5534022&goto=lastpost
http://www.xian-tourism.com:82/gate/big5/www.xian-tourism.com/article/?type=detail&id=13161
http://news.hshan.com/msnews/2009/07/1209384033.html
http://www.itpub.net/redirect.php?tid=1189145&goto=lastpost
http://mm.gd.vnet.cn/sports/sports_detail.aspx?news_uid=dVKA8NVdYJmf9c
http://bbs.koubei.com/thread_239_6710_1.html
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/travel/1/224657.shtml
http://bbs.club.sina.com.cn/thread-140-0/table-126098-4710.html
http://bbs.sxtvs.com/redirect.php?tid=175341&goto=lastpost&sid=td86Ss
http://www.hwyd.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardid=98&id=16941
http://news.sina.com.tw/article/20090712/1909384.html
http://bbs.scol.com.cn/dispbbs.asp?boardid=66&id=632652&move=next
http://www.wj001.com/html/Sports/2009-7-12/1738005279.html
http://news.youdao.com/top?item=88951a8418f1b7f4
http://club-life.news.tom.com/item_722_33847_0_1.html
http://www.sxdaily.com.cn/data/wwxwdd/20090712_9876608_1.htm
http://xian.qq.com/a/20090712/000012.htm
http://bbs.scol.com.cn/TopicOther.asp?t=5&BoardID=66&id=632526
http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/2009-07-12/09364477717.shtml

Things have been super busy for me of late but when things soon settle down I’ll have a lot of other recent news and blogging to catch up on (just returned from 10 weeks shooting in Europe etc).