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Gansu Province’s Incredible Great Walls and Silk Road Sites: Part II

26 November 2018 / author

I’m a mountain guy, I decided, after just a few hours in the outskirts of the Gobi desert. It was hot, and blowy, the Great Wall we were following was practically impossible to see, and the ground beneath us was parched and covered in huge salt pans. Give me a goat track, I thought. A ridge ripped by a cold wind from Siberia, and a Ming wall I can actually see. But my friend Chinoook is made of sterner stuff (though I give him a run for his money on my home turf). Out ahead, he led the way through the salt pans towards a brown smudge on the horizon. “There’s the wall”, he promised. I squinted. “Sure it is”, I thought skeptically. But he was right. Just meters off a salt pan they could have used as a set for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings, stood an enormous, multi-tiered wall – a giant layer cake two thousand years old.

Gansu Province’s Incredible Great Walls and Silk Road Sites: Part I

11 November 2018 / author

This is a story about the Great Wall, but even more than that it’s a story about a guy I know who’s really, really into the Great Wall. Yes, I know I’m into the Wall; but I am nothing more than a young, naive Luke Skywalker to this guy’s Yoda. In May 2013 I joined him on an expedition to explore obscure, remote parts of the wall out in Gansu Province, as far west as historical China extended during the Han and Ming dynasties. In a week with Yoda, I would climb a rockface, navigate by night, gather Han potsherds, thumb rides by the side of the freeway, and eat stir fried gizzards. I also learned a lot about the Great Wall, and made a good friend.

Mt Asahi, Hokkaido

1 November 2018 / author

Summit fever is usually a dangerous phenomenon that kills climbers. High on the flank of some improbable peak, overcome by the desire to reach the top after all that effort, time, and money, the climber ignores the safety rules, continues well past the turnaround time, and ends up dying because there’s not enough time, energy, or both, to get back down. It seems to happen on Mt Everest a lot.

That fine sunny day near the top of Mt Asahi on Hokkaido I had summit fever too. The difference? About 6,500 vertical meters. Mt Asahi is a modest peak, and although in late Autumn it was already covered by a surprise coat of snow, it’s a simple walk to the top. A wind was picking up, blowing hard above the last shoulder of the mountain. I didn’t want our daughter, sleeping soundly in my backpack, to be woken by that blast. Yon suggested that she and our two friends could wait at the shoulder if I thought I could be back quickly.

Summit Fever!

Horse riding at Lake Son-kul and the road to Kazarman

25 October 2018 / author

↑Storm blows in towards Lake Son-kul

A breeze can turn to a blast in seconds. We lazed at the door of our yurt in the last light of day, and the wind did just that. “Ai!” yelled the matron of the camp, if that’s the way to describe a tough as nails Kyrgyz mother. Seeing her start tying down the other yurts, we clued in quickly and did the same to ours. Moments later the storm hit, sending dust flying and causing the horses to whinny in complaint, their high pitched wail rising high over the thumping flap of woolen yurt doors cutting loose from their ties. Rain splashed down, brief but hard, and then, almost before it had come, it was gone. The sun put in one last effort, the air was soft again, and the cold night fell.

Mighty Mount Yotei

18 October 2018 / author

Rain. Of course it’s raining. Because it’s the last day of what could be our last trip to Hokkaido for a long while. So, of course, it’s raining. I get up anyway, still dark at 5am, quietly so I don’t disturb my wife and kid (who’s bunking with us this holiday). Just alert enough to drive, I head out of the village fully expecting to be back in bed in 20 minutes. But suddenly, around the corner, I see Yotei. It’s a giant triangle looming over everything. Dark, dominating, and really big.

And its summit is clear. Not a low-level cloud in sight. I speed up, just a little. Alone, early, clear summit. Rain or no, it’s time, at last.

Kungsleden: Arctic Circle Trekking with a Three Year Old

9 October 2018 / author

One hundred kilometers in ten days through Arctic Sweden, with full camping gear and a three year old. Sounds like a good plan right? Hmmm, maybe not so much. Sometimes – just sometimes – the determination not to be those people who gave up everything they loved after having a child in favour of the Eternal Lightness of Brunch can go just a little bit too far. In this case, 42 kilometers of painful load carrying too far.

But seen another way, we pulled off a five day, 42 kilometer trek through Arctic Sweden with our three year old. She, and we, actually had a blast. Mission accomplished. Just.

Åland Autumn: Wind Jammers & Windbreakers

18 September 2018 / author

Åland is one of those great places one’s never heard of, and doesn’t know how to pronounce. Tiny, clean, and not much to do but enjoy the fresh air and beautiful autumn. Home to the Flying P-Liners, glorious tall ships of the turn of the century grain trade, it was a lovely stopover between our touristy, but satisfying, visits to Oslo and Stockholm in 2005.

All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by

10 September 2018 / author

“You’ll get your sea legs soon enough”, Pete said.

I grunted as I scrubbed the decks with a big wet mop. “This is nothing, anyway. When I was in the Navy, we used to go out in the Bay of Biscay and turn off the motors”. His regional English accent somehow made this sound worse. I don’t know which region, it didn’t matter. My brain was shutting down with the effort of not vomiting. “The ship would roll around in the sea for a few days. Everyone got it all out of their systems soon enough. One poor lad…”. His voice trailed away. The picture of a hundred royal Navy recruits throwing up for two days had pushed me over the line. And over the railing.

Old Roadhouse on the Silk Road

23 July 2018 / author

Local boy running his horses up the alpine meadow

High up in the mountains of southern Kyrgyzstan, not far from the mountain pass that leads into China, lies Tash Rabat. Precisely the kind of place I really love, it is an old stone fortified “caravanserai“, standing cold in the high, remote mountains, full of ghosts. Not all ghosts are bad, as I would discover. On a cold night, this place takes you back to the Silk Road five or ten centuries ago.

Stok Kangri II: Summit Day

2 July 2018 / author

A hundred vertical meters beneath the summit of Stok Kangri. Would I make it?

Continued from Climbing Stok Kangri I: Leh to Base Camp

Just past midnight. It’s Summit Day.

Someone bangs a saucepan and yells “Good Morning Base Camp!” I feel well rested. It’s not too cold, and I put on my clothes and go into the homestay tent. Thankfully it doesn’t smell too badly of cheap fuel. Breakfast is porridge and there’s honey and I drink some tea. We’re given a packed lunch, too, all wrapped in foil. The others seem tired and they reveal they didn’t get much sleep. Poor Tom is suffering from a churning belly. Of all the mornings!

I feel strong, and I think I might just make it.