Konkaling Peaks, Southeast Tibet. In October and November I visited southeast Tibet with Sari Nicoll. We were accompanied by a film crew that included John Catto and Patrick Morrow. From the city of Chengdu we had three hard days of driving to the trailhead, via Kanding, Litang and Doucheng. From the trailhead it was only a day’s trek to base camp in the Konkaling Peaks, a small range in extreme southeast Sichuan. This area was visited and documented by the noted botanist Joseph Rock in the 1920s.

We established base camp at 13,500 feet below the north face of Jampelyang, an unclimbed peak around ca. 6000 meters.

Sari and I established an advanced camp at 15,000-plus feet. From there, and with John Catto filming, we climbed diagonally up and across the north face to a bivy at 18,000 feet on the northeast face. We stayed at this bivy for two nights, but did not go to the summit. We made a rapid descent to the northeast.

Later, we made another attempt, but barely got past base camp.

We did complete the sacred Kora (“pilgrimage”) around the peaks, accompanied by the lama from the local Buddhist monastery.

Charlie Fowler, unaffiliated