By Marcel - 13 April 2008
Climbing the Dalijia Mountain in China takes you: 14 800ft high; up more than 3000ft vertically in 1 day; through Snow,Mud and Water; from 7:30a.m. to 8:30p.m.
This whole mountain climbing expedition started the day before when the missionary here in China, Pieter wanted to know whether I would like to go mountain climbing with him and his brother Zac from the States. Without a moment's hesitation I said, 'absolutely' very confidently.
Later that afternoon after just packing the essentials - which included sleeping bag, some snacks and water and then lots of clothes: 2 T-shirts one long one short, 1 pullover, GCX jacket, thick snow jacket, beanie, buff and gloves - we drove to a town near the mountain we were to climb the next morning. Unfortunately the only accommodation we could find was a scruffy motel as we only arrived there around midnight, but we took it none the less.
The next morning we woke up before sunrise and hopped into the car to drive to our final destination. We reached a point on the mountain range that is approx. 11 500ft high and parked the car there. As soon as we had a hearty breakfast which consisted of twinkie like cream things and caramelized puffs we set out.
At first, all was going very well. The weather wasn't too cold, the bags weren't
to heavy and so on. But after the first 500m I could feel something was very different. The ALTITUDE!! I wasn't tired or unfit, but my lungs just couldn't get enough air! Needless to say, we continued on the ridge until we reached the top part then we went down through a boulder snow covered valley and up another very steep incline to reach the ridge that would take us to the top.
Aft
er strugeling to reach the top of the incline for more than 40min. the most amazing sight greeted me. Snow covered mountains as far as the eye could see! This truly looked like some scene from a foreign movie.
After we got on top of the opposite ridge we followed this,not without difficulty, to the summit of the mountain that we reached at 3:00p.m. The summit is
14 800ft high and looks out on the most amazing Chinese and Tibetan areas. Pieter carried a football along with him and we made some passes at 14 800ft! I think that has probably got to be one of the highest football passes to date! We stayed one the summit for almost an hour and then decided to head back.
& nbsp; (The summit)
Going down was 3 times as easy as coming up and it took us half the time to reach the car. On the way down God really blessed us with an amazing sunset over the snowy mountain peaks and I was just once again reminded of the awesome greatness and love of our Saviour Jesus Christ!
What a great God we serve!
Pieter knee high in snow
Myself in full gear