China’s southwestern Sichuan (“Four Rivers”) province is where the Tibetan plateau erupts from the plains of central China. Together with the northern part of Yunnan province to the south, and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west, the Eastern Himalaya (formerly known as Kham) comprises a vast area with numerous, stunning virgin summits and unexplored valleys. The majority of the inhabitants are ethnically Tibetan — Khampas — and, as Buddhists, consider many of these peaks (including Genyen) sacred.

Fowler and Boskoff decided to climb anyway. Fowler had little patience for China’s ponderous bureaucracy. In an email to Dave Anderson, an American planning to climb in the Genyen valley, Fowler opined that obtaining permits was complicated and expensive, and encouraged “a corrupt system [that] doesn’t help the local people or climbers who will follow in your footsteps” (see sidebar p.71). Without permits, it would be hard to track the pair’s travels.

On December 14, Jon Otto, an American with long experience in the region and owner of a climbing school in Sichuan, dispatched teams of local Chinese climbers to search the towns and trailheads near several unclimbed 6,000-meter peaks of possible interest. Although as focused as possible, this still left a huge search zone — an area the size of Colorado, but twice as mountainous.