The Unstoppable Force of Grassroots Mountaineering

Global Attention: China’s Grassroots Mountaineering
    On the early morning of June 23, shocking news suddenly emerged from Pakistan: two Chinese civilian mountaineers, Yang Chunfeng and Rao Jianfeng, were tragically killed in a terrorist attack at a mountaineering camp in Pakistan. The incident not only stunned the industry but also sent shockwaves across the nation and the world. As more facts came to light, the tragedy surrounding the deaths of these two grassroots climbers—and their emergence into the national spotlight—brought Chinese grassroots mountaineering into the global view for the first time.

    In the early 20th century, the mountaineering craze in the Himalayas began and has flourished for over a century to this day. If the challenge of Mount Everest marked the beginning of this golden age, then the pursuit of climbing all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters became the most thrilling and magnificent movement in the history of human mountaineering. From 1950 when the French first summited Annapurna, the first of the 8,000-meter peaks, to the final summit of Shishapangma by the Chinese, countless explorers have pushed the boundaries of human confidence and footprint—step by step—toward the world’s most remote, treacherous, and towering peaks—the 14 peaks above 8,000 meters that stand tall around the globe.

    In China, the first to take on the challenge of all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters—and achieve great success—was the Tibet Mountaineering Team, organized and fully supported by the state. From the establishment of the 14 Peaks Expedition Team in 1992 to the completion of the last peak in 2007, the Tibet Mountaineering Team spent a full 14 years. In the end, three climbers—Tenji Dorge, Bamba Tashi, and Lhakpa—jointly accomplished this mission. They remain the only three Chinese people to have summited all 14 peaks to date. Around the year 2000, as the Tibet Mountaineering Team was making strides toward the “14 peaks,” China’s grassroots mountaineering scene also entered a period of rapid development.

 

Self-reliance: The Path of Grassroots Mountaineering
    In the late 1990s, there were those known as the so-called “Tianshan School,” represented by Wang Tie’nan and Yang Chunfeng, who started with expeditions such as Bogda Peak and Muztagh Ata, and eventually summited several 8,000-meter peaks including Everest and Manaslu multiple times. Meanwhile, across the country—from Shenzhen, Yunnan, Shandong, to Shaanxi—numerous grassroots mountaineering enthusiasts joined the movement, ushering Chinese grassroots mountaineering into a brand-new phase of development.