SOUTHCLIMB: CHINA CLIMB

When we first decided to go climb in China, we only had two things pretty clear ...

The climbing would be amazing and the experience would be an unforgettable adventure!!!

We' ve seen pictures of the area before, so our expectations were pretty hi.

We arrived to Yangshuo, settled in the middle of impresive limetones karsts and rice fields, in the Guilin region, after a 10 hour overnight bus from Shenzen, border city with Hong Kong.

Our first impression of Yangshuo was amazing ! We felt like in a movie, walking through the streets of this ancient town, chinese music sounding on the street, spectacular limestone towers right over our heads and a constant and silent mist in the air.

Streets of Yangshuo.

After settling down, in our $8 per night room, we went to take a walk and quickly find some of the local climbing stores. We did some research on the best places to go climbing and how to get to each area. There is a climbing guidebook, and you can get it at any climbing store in Yangshuo. Renting a bike for a $1 per day, was the cheapest, most efficent and safest way to get to mostly every cliff base. There are also some minibus shuttles that you can get to the cliffs, if you don't feel like biking every day.

Yangshuo from the other side of the river, with the typical mist.

White Mountain, is one of the most popular climbing areas. It hosts more than a 100 routes, ranging from 5.10a to 5.14d. This is a massive wall, slightly overhanging, with very technical and long routes. The style on this wall is amazing and every route we climbed was definetely a world class climb. Any given day you'll find some of the strongest climbers on the world testing their skills on this wall.

A beautiful setting.

Just a little part of White Mountain. Is so big, is hard to get it all in the pciture.

Moon Hill is the other super popular area. You' ve probably seen pictures of it in climbing magazines. It's defeinetely a place to visit. The climbing here involves negotiating tufas on a pretty overhang wall. There are enough routes to keep you busy for weeks and the views and sorroundings from up there are magnificent.

Lei Pi Shan is another popular place to climb. The setting is not so great, since is right next to the road, and in china, people seem to enjoy using the horns of their motorbikes as much as they can, but the climbing is damn good !!! It host arround 30 routes, all of them high quality. The grade here starts arround 5.11 and goes up ...

Will this give you a dimension of the wall ??

Add to those, some other 50 areas and thousand of limestone towers that have

not been touched yet, and China could become you favorite climbing destination, oh yes, plus climbing here is possible almost year round. The best months are October, November, December and January. At this time, weather is pretty dry and sunny, with good temperatures to send. The rest of the year it might be a little bit more humid, but the walls are so overhanging that you can climb every day !

Yanghsuo it self is a small town (by chinese standards) with a population of about 300.000 people ! Streets are ussually crowded and there are bikes, motor bikes and mini vans everywere. It seems like there are not many traffic rules, but it all flows in an impressive way.

So, why would you want to go climb in China? Because it will be a life changing experience. The culture, the food, the language, the views and the climbing will blow you. You'll go one time and you'll want to come back. China definetely changed our lifes in a good and positive way. It opened our eyes and minds and once we were able and capable to understand, we had the best time ever.