Delighted to find our cache and finally get some improving weather, we gathered our things and started to rappel the south face from a point directly below our high camp. Nine days into our seven day supply, reversing the ridge to the cache to descend the gulley south of the notch was out of the question. The climbing that separated us from our cache was much more difficult and time consuming than we had expected. After 25-30 rappels with our skinny alpine rack we touched down on the glacier at 15,600’ with no pins, four stoppers, three cams, no runners and about 15’ of webbing remaining.

Anxious to avoid another night in our soggy down bags we opted to descend to base camp that night. At 10:30pm, in the pouring rain, we found ourselves hopelessly lost in the brush at 14,200’. Without flat ground we built a crude stone ledge in the talus, pitched the tent and settled in for a final, miserable night. On top of seven days of climbing, 42 hours had passed since our last bivi, 52 since our last meal.

The following day, our tenth day, we hiked down to the Changping Valley, getting cliffed out in several locations and having to cross a gorge at 13,600’. The yak trail, as we saw from below, is on the north side of the valley, along the base of the walls. We reached base camp that afternoon at 2:30pm.

Dylan lost over 30 pounds during the climb, Chad over 20. The route followed one rest day after a six-day acclimatization climb, a second ascent of a nearby peak by a 3000’ rock climb (5.8, 12 pitches) topping out at 19,000.’ In the 6 week trip, spanning a six-day weather window, 16 of 17 consecutive days were spent climbing.

We were the only foreign expedition in the region. The tourism industry in Sichuan is reeling from the devastating earthquake in May and the political crisis in Tibet. Traveling there is safe and enjoyable — we highly recommend it.