During the summer of 2024, Haoyu Wen and her various climbing partners made the first ascents of six peaks in the northern Shaluli Shan (some of them are reported here).

In the first week of July, Haoyu and I, with two trekkers, traveled to the Dapu group of mountains, aiming to reach some colorful lakes we’d seen on a satellite map. We drove along the G317 Sichuan-Tibet Highway to reach the entrance to the Banchang Gou, a valley that heads southeast and gives access to the southwest side of the main Dapu peaks. From where we left the vehicles, we rode horses through swamps and bushes for 12km to reach the lakes at 4,800m. I was surprised, at this time of year, to see WI2 ice near the treeline.

We camped by the glacier to the south of Dapu II (5,472m, 31°39’34”N, 99°33’23”E), and the next morning, Haoyu, Jun Ma, and I climbed to the summit via the glacier.

Several days later, Haoyu came back to this valley with Zixuan Huo, Jiajun Jiang, and Meiying Zhou to climb a rocky pyramid to the south of the valley: Peak 5,410m (31°38’07”N, 99°30’05”E). [On Google Earth this is a tiny summit of around 5,300m, which, due to its sharpness, has lost altitude on the satellite imagery; 5,410m was the measured altitude.] This is the highest summit in the area to the south of the Dapu mountains. The four climbed the north ridge, with 5.4 rock and some mixed.

Later in July, Haoyu, Qiyun Fu, and I decided to attempt unclimbed Gangga I (5,688m), southwest of Ganzi. We quickly discovered that the approach road from the south had been damaged by flooding, so we took a 35km 4WD road from the west, which I had discovered during the Dapu trip. This gave a smooth ride to a farm southwest of the mountain. With the help of a few locals, we established base camp at 5,000m below the west glacier.

The next day, we carried heavy packs up 50° ice slopes, which were exposed to rockfall, toward the west ridge. Haoyu and Qiyun climbed unroped but set up a rope for me on the steep section. We arrived on the ridge at 2 p.m. and put up the tent, but before retiring for the night we fixed a rope across a crevassed area above.

We set out at 4 a.m. on August 1, crossed the crevasses in the dark, and continued up the icy face above, moving together. Haoyu took the lead, placing screws and snow stakes as intermediate protection. We crossed over a foresummit of 5,650m, then followed a broad snow ridge to reach the main summit, on which we arrived at 9 a.m., and where I unfurled an LGBTQ pride flag. Qiyun and I descended by downclimbing and rappelling, while Haoyu downclimbed and removed all the anchors. [Editor’s Note: Although ascents of smaller peaks in the Gangga range have been recorded in the AAJ, this was the first known ascent of the highest summit.]

           —Xueer Yu, China