Geography wasn’t the only factor. Funding became a formidable hurdle, as well, with a Chinese military aerial search an expensive possibility. Generous individuals fronted enough money to begin the search; however, with an estimated price tag of $75,000, the effort would clearly require fundraising. Accordingly, two committees — one in Telluride and another in Seattle — formed.

After canvassing the towns and trailheads for a week, the four search teams, as well as the police, had produced few leads, merely confirming what was already known: Fowler and Boskoff had been in Litang in early November and had not been seen or heard from since. In order to reach Genyen, Fowler and Boskoff would have driven from Litang to either Lamaya or Zhangna, two tiny villages four hours distant at the road’s end, whence begins the trail to the Lenggu monastery, a 700-year-old complex at the base of Genyen populated by some 200 monks. But the Litang police claimed to have found no trace of them at either village or in talking to the Lenggu monks. Since Fowler and Boskoff had seemingly not visited the Genyen valley, the only remaining clue lay in an email from Fowler in which he wrote, “Now off to one more different area to try a 6,000-meter peak and [a] smaller one.” Wrongly trusting the police’s assertion that they had visited the Genyen valley on December 12 (in fact, they did not visit until December 25), searchers would look elsewhere.

When Gunlogson contacted me on December 12, I was eager to help. Despite living nearby, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and being proficient in Chinese, my reasons for heading to China were mostly personal. I had known Chris for eight years, working under her as a guide at Mountain Madness. One summer, I’d lived in her basement in Seattle; for rent, she charged me a case of microbrew per month. Most recently, we’d guided Mount Elbrus, in the Caucasus. Here, returning late one night from the pub, we’d almost been arrested when police discovered Chris standing on my shoulders, trying to climb onto the roof of the locked guesthouse. Charlie, too, had long been one of my climbing heroes. An old Patagonia ad showed him driving a convertible, fuzzy dice hanging from the windshield, desert rock in the distance, and a beautiful, fit blond climbing in next to him; it convinced me that the life of a traveling climber was all I wanted.