Many places in the world claim to be the ice climbers paradise, and even though I'm from Norway, which has some of the longest and most difficult waterfalls in the world, with routes up to 800 meters long, I must say that coming to China and finding several hundred ice walls of varying levels within 2 hours walk from your guesthouse is enough to take your breath away.

The area I visited is situated in Central China in the high lands of Si Chuan is a two and a half hour flight from Beijing. The mountains pop up around you as you land at 500 meters above sea level in the city of Chengdu. The bus tickets are hard to buy, particularly because it is close to the Chinese New Year, where everyone wants to go home and celebrate with their families for the coming of the Pig Year starting mid Feb 2007. 

I got tickets for the last bus leaving at 10 AM the next morning. The bus ride took a little more than 8 hours and I soon started to feel the altitude as we were soon to cross a pass at more than 4400 meters above sea level. We even saw thee panda bears as we were passing Aba inhabitation, which specializes in saving these endangered animals. The roads bend like a snake as we get into the heart of this relatively unknown ice climbers paradise. The secret to all the ice walls are all the tall mountains surrounding this valley called Shuang Qiao Gou, close to the famous Si Gu Niang Shan, meaning four ladies that rise all the way up to 6250 meters.