It was on the last night, at a packed outdoor restaurant beside a car-choked road, that Dave Graham taught me the most important lesson I learned during my entire two-week experience at the 2011 Petzl RocTrip China.

“You can only say ‘broccoli’ so many times before they understand you,” he declared.

Compared to where we had been an hour earlier, it felt like a miracle to be sitting here at this curbside joint in downtown Guiyang, enjoying wine and a delicious platter of whole fish and root vegetables swimming in two inches of bubbling-hot oil.

And of course, this plate of fresh broccoli—exactly what we had wanted.

We had faced many hurdles to get to this last supper. First was surviving a death-defying five-hour taxi ride out of Southern China’s Getu valley.

We’d been dropped off in the outskirts of Guiyang at a hotel whose name we didn’t know, and even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to pronounce it, let alone spell it. After we deposited our luggage into two shit-scented rooms, the taxi driver showed us to a restaurant next door. The restaurant was empty, looked seedy and we didn’t want to eat dog. We wanted to go back downtown, 10 miles away, where the tall buildings outlined by neon lights and the crowds of young people on lively streets suggested places with decent food.

But we also didn’t want to be dropped off in an alien city of 3 million with no way of getting back to the hotel whose name we didn’t know. More than anything we didn’t want to miss our flights home the next morning.

The utter unfamiliarity of this country had by now thoroughly depleted us. Communicating anything even slightly complex seemed impossible and, being so hungry and over it, everyone was resigned to eating at the seedy restaurant.

Everyone, that is, except Dave.

“We are not eating here!” he insisted. Through dramatic gestures and words harvested from a Speak Chinese iPhone app, Dave explained our intent over and over and over to the taxi driver, the taxi driver’s friend, two women at the restaurant, and the hotel bellman. The rest of us sat at a table with our heads propped up by our arms.

After 15 minutes, the taxi driver rang up someone else, dragging a sixth person into our nightmare, because this person supposedly spoke English. Dave talked to this random other person for five minutes, but that didn’t get us any further.

Say what you want about Americans, but for the most part, we’re actually quite courteous, especially in a foreign country. Being inherently polite people, we were getting pissed that Dave was making such a big deal out of this. Couldn’t he just sit down, shut up and eat a little dog like the rest of us were willing to do?

Suddenly the taxi driver and his friend herded us back into the van, and it seemed as though Dave had finally gotten the point across. But when we veered off the main road and shot down an exit ramp toward to the airport, we all started gesturing frantically that we didn’t want to go there yet.

The driver screeched to a halt in the middle of the road and pointed to the airport, as if he was simply showing us where it was. We settled back into our seats and thanked the driver. “Xie xie!” Thank you. That was the only Chinese phrase I learned and I’m pretty sure I was still pronouncing it wrong.

Then the driver whipped a U-turn while blaring his horn to alert the oncoming traffic. Magically, the traffic parted as we entered its flow—as naturally as a fish released into a river.

After two weeks in China, the threat of death by vehicular accident no longer fazed us. Our nerves were too fried. It wasn’t till we sat down at this lively downtown locals’ place—with the taxi driver joining his friends, tallboys of 2.8 percent beer round their adjacent table—that we felt confident things would work out. We were finally enjoying ourselves.

What ended up being the best night of the trip would have never happened had it not been for Dave. What had seemed like a character flaw an hour ago instead revealed itself to be a gift. Dave’s persistence, his compulsion to sink his teeth into the fleshy pulp of life, is an asset that is obviously the result of his past dozen years spent living abroad and climbing. Dave is a fighter, both on the rock and in life, and going to war to communicate himself seems to be the overarching theme of his existence.

“You can only say ‘broccoli’ so many times before they understand you.”

I love that line. Because what that really means is that even though you can get by on the easy path, avoiding conflict, you’ll never get broccoli. You’ll eat dog. And to go one step further, it’s the best stuff in life that forces you to get out of your figurative and literal hotel room and experience the world head on. To travel across the world just to do something stupid like rock climb, but in turn be able to experience one of the most rare and beautiful places you’ve ever seen. That’s what it’s really all about.

Amid ten thousand verdant, conical, quintessentially oriental mountains—the kind you might picture were you to imagine China—stands one broader massif whose entire upper section has been bored through. The Great Arch of Getu in Southwestern China is a tunnel of sculpted, wavy, pockmarked limestone, a plumb 700 feet from ground to nadir.

“It’s like the Gallery at Red Rocks,” said Joe Kinder, next to me. “Times two!” We laughed. It’s absolutely nothing like that.

It was unlike anything we’d ever seen. We stood beside the pea-green Getu River drooling over this megalithic freak.

Joe was among the 40-plus sponsored athletes in attendance for the Petzl RocTrip China—by all measures, the biggest one by a long shot in the annual gathering’s decade of existence.

We eagerly hiked up the 1,368 (I counted, but no one cared) steps to finally stand within the tremendous hangar. To be in it was incomprehensible and absolutely disorienting due to the ceiling, 400 feet overhead and riddled by mysterious caves from which massive vines emerged and stretched. The ceiling was so high above that you’d sometimes forget it was there. On the far (eastern) side of the Arch is the Blind Valley, where more walls, all unclimbed, rose above dense groves of bamboo and wild banana trees. The Arch’s immediate flank was probably 1,200 feet and completely overhanging the whole way.

“It’s pointlessly large,” said the wry “Strong” Steve McClure, referring to of the Great Arch. And in a way, he’s right. Most of the routes are only 20- to 40-meter single-pitch lines. There’s so much rock overhead, it takes a machine like Dani Andrada to do anything with it.

Dani is from Spain, and I dare say that among the elite and talented group of climbers in attendance for the RocTrip, no one commands as much peer respect as Dani. Dave Graham, Joe Kinder, Jon Cardwell, Chris Sharma—all would trade just about any redpoint for Dani’s approval which, being a tight-lipped caballero, he rarely offers.

Dani’s got the fire. He “invented” a muerte, after all. When he cheers you on, his voice is distinct above all others—it’s guttural and actually frightening. Watching another person climbing well and trying hard appears to ignite a deeply empathetic reaction within him. To give up on a route in front of Dani is unthinkable.

This was Dani’s third trip to Getu in the last year, and on the last day of the RocTrip he completed what he what he called the best multi-pitch route he’d ever established.

Corazon de Ensueno (5.14b)  is an eight-pitch goliath. A 40-meter 5.13d up overhanging honeycombs kicks off the route. From there navigating through the ceiling is an upside down vision quest, involving two back-to-back 20-meter 5.12a pitches so steep, you actually climb down, feet first, on tufas and jugs. To reach one belay, you crawl up inside a cave within the ceiling. The crux 5.14b pitch exits the tunnel on a lone tufa that bisects a bulging, blank white face.

How he managed to bolt this behemoth, with a heavy Hilti, and without breaking his back, is beyond belief. All in all, Corazon de Ensueno took Dani 11 solid days of bolting work spread over two trips (20 and 15 days each). On “rest days,” Dani still managed to get in 24 other single-pitch routes as hard as 5.14b.

“This cave, for me, is the best in the world,” said Dani. “For the moment, there is nothing bigger.”

Of the 15 crags in the Getu area, all within walking distance from our rooms (comfortable enough, but lacking hot water) in the Ziyun Hotel in the center of a tiny village, the Great Arch is not only the coolest feature, it has the most unique climbing.

Over two weeks, the Urgonian karst limestone challenged all of us with really interesting, thought-provoking climbing. The holds—mostly sloping crimper dishes, underclings and big palmy slopers—were not only easy to miss in the chalk-white walls, but using them demanded the intuition of first finding the right body position. Furthermore, most of the holds were coated in residual powdery dirt from never being exposed to rain. In general the rock had no friction, reminding me most of the Metolius Wood Grips. The best conditions, ironically, seemed to occur when there was a little bit of humidity in the air. Still, using the grips often came down to having the strength to hang them.

Unless, of course, you found the knee-bars. This was the most knee-bar intensive place I’ve climbed (and my home crag is Rifle). I didn’t bring my kneepads to China because when I packed my bags I was still in a mentally compromised state, the result of having my mind blown two weeks earlier when Ramon Julian Puigblanque onsighted, sans kneepads, The Crew (5.14c) in Rifle. I had figured that if Ramonet could walk The Crew a vue, then I might need to rethink my approach to climbing. Unfortunately, I’m not Ramonet—no one is. I went to China with nothing but a pair of thin prAna pants, and went home with two badly bruised patellae.

Really good climbers—people who do 5.14 first or second try—were falling on 5.11. Sasha DiGiulian, fresh off her incredible 5.14d redpoint, fell on her first route of the trip: a 5.11a. I had a good laugh about that until I got on the same route and fell even lower than Sasha—I didn’t know that there was such a thing as 5.11a with mandatory kneebars!

A lot of the routes were new, needed a little brushing and involved a bit of loose rock. As the Americans—Sasha, Joe, Colette McInerny, Emily Harrington, Dave Graham, Jon Cardwell and I—piddled around on some 5.11s and easy 5.12s that first day, on an adjacent four-pitch 5.12b, a drama unfolded.

“Nobody move!” ordered Nina Caprez, a rather amazing Swiss climber who has achieved such accomplishments as 5.14b sport and the fearsome Silbergeier (5.13d) of the Ratikon.

Two hundred feet below her a dozen oblivious climbers dallied about, unaware that a massive (200-pound) tree had just dislodged at this second-pitch anchor and at any moment was going fall down and crush them. Nina and her climbing partner, Ethan Pringle, had hopped onto the roots when the thing came loose, their weights holding the verging tree for now.

Just below Nina and Ethan was the desperate climber who had accidentally dislodged the tree while trying to paddle up to the anchors. The climber, his face all contorted and white, was amid a 5.12 run-out that he could not reverse. However, he was also unable to climb any higher without further pulling loose the teetering trunk. He looked pumped.

Nina seized control and quickly constructed a 15-foot chain of quickdraws. She clipped one end to the anchors and tossed the other to the climber, ordering him to clip in and move to the side.

The tree was now succumbing to gravity, but there were too many people below just to let it fly. Nina scrambled and produced a long sling, which she hitched around the 6-inch diameter trunk and clipped to the anchor. With the unwieldy tree secure for the moment, she and Ethan managed to break it apart. Nina lowered the heavier half with her rope, and then rappelled with the remaining branches dangling from her waist.

As this was such a new area, with loose rock (and trees)—and because over 450 pre-registered climbers from around the world, plus hundreds of onlookers and locals, had descended upon Getu for the RocTrip and were milling beneath all the climbs—wearing helmets was strongly encouraged.

During the RocTrip, people were everywhere and climbing was difficult with lines and crowds of spectators. It was the most eclectic mix of cultures that I’d ever experienced in one place: the cold but proud French, the happy Chinese, the rock-solid people of Oceana, the savvy Brits, and the completely imperial Americans. The Chinese were especially starry-eyed about seeing, above all others, the big-name American climbers, offering some insight into just how big our culture and its media really is across the world.

Crowds congregated around one section of wall containing a collection of the Arch’s hardest single-pitch routes, including a 5.14a, a 5.14c link-up, a 5.14d project, and one of the most amazing 5.13d’s I’ve ever been on, involving really cool compression moves on big flat slopers and a 20-foot runout through a holdless slab crux at the top. Over the course of the week, I watched the Petzl athletes battle each other for turns on these stunners and was completely impressed by just how good these athletes are. I was especially inspired by the French climbers—of course Gerome Pouvreau and Tony Lamiche, but also the grace, technique and power exuded by the females Melissa Le Nevé, Florence Pinet and of course Nina “La Machina” Caprez (who is Swiss, not French, even though she speaks it).

But perhaps the most exciting climber to watch was also the youngest. Enzo Oddo is 16 and handsome, has an attitude and likes to talk a lot of shit, but is actually a nice kid who is a phenomenal climber. He made jumping between piss-poor knobs and protrusions on the 5.14d look like the most natural thing in the world.

To me, it was not only hard to climb in front of a crowd (though some people thrive on that), but trying because of how many Chinese people would stop you, seemingly just because you’re a foreigner (any foreigner will do), to take your photo.

Perhaps because the first girl I ever kissed, back in third grade, was Japanese, I’ve always had a certain fondness for Asian women. I find them beautiful. Thus, my heart fluttered when three attractive Chinese girls approached me, shyly holding delicate smiles behind their thin hands, and gesturing that they wanted to have their pictures taken with me.

I felt awkward as each girl took a turn standing beside me while the other two giggled and snapped photos.

My climbing partner for the day was Daila Ojeda—the girlfriend of Chris Sharma, who, on that day, was on belay duty while Dani Andrada sent the eight-pitch mega project. After the Chinese girls left, Daila came over and teased me.

“Que guapo!” she said, nudging me with her elbow.

“I don’t know what that was all about,” I said, blushing.

“Mate,” said this random Australian, who appeared out of nowhere. “They think you’re Chris Sharma.”

I look nothing like Sharma—not in my lumpy, slouching posture, and most definitely not on the rock, where I tend to shake like a nervous, wet dog.

“Yeah,” continued the Australian, “I heard the girls say, ‘Chris Sharma!’ ‘Chris Sharma!’ Then they came over and took pictures with you. They thought you were Sharma. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

How is it that we’ve made it all the way to 2011 yet only recently did climbers “find” this completely badass arch that not only has a manmade staircase leading right up to the base, but is so massive that a fighter jet once flew through it?

This was the burning question I couldn’t shake.

Just when the world was feeling so small, when all knowledge fits into the palm of a hand on a smart phone, and when you can get to the opposite side of the globe in what seems like a single long day—that vantage explodes wide open when you see something like the Great Arch. You think: Well, what else is out there? How many more of these things are there?

My mind reeled. I’d returned to a humbled, curious state, when the world still felt too large to ever be conquered or fully understood.

The Great Arch is not only mind-blowing as a climbing venue. On autumn mornings, light shines through the Arch as if the sun were concocted in the mountain’s belly, casting a spotlight of pale rays on the Getu River. Or so they say.

Lafouche—a staple at Petzl France, first name Laurent, and renowned RocTrip DJ—had given us the beta:

“The sun shines through the arch between 8:30 and 9 in the morning,” he said. “But I’ve never seen it. I’ve spent over a month here, and I’ve never seen the sun. If you wake up and it’s sunny, grab your camera and run to the Arch!”

In my two weeks in Getu, unfortunately, I never saw this original light beam either. I woke up every morning at 7 and hopefully opened the blind to my hotel window. Alas, the weather was always cloudy. The only proof that this celestial alignment occurs is one mediocre camera-phone photo taken by Erwan Le Lann—the marketing director for Petzl France, who decided to hold the RocTrip in China, and has spent the last two years preparing for this one event by living in Getu while overseeing the climbing development of this spanking new destination.

The Petzl RocTrip, now in its 10th year, is a festival that brings together community and all the top climbers on the Petzl team, with the greater aim of giving something back to the community, whether in the form of new routes, improved hardware or better access. In 2008, for example, the RocTrip came to the Red River Gorge and, with the Red River Gorge Climbers’ Coalition, raised over $30,000 in a weekend and paid off a year’s worth of the mortgage on the Pendergrass-Murray Preserve.

Erwann Le Lann is a certified mountain guide in his native France, and he has the tall, brawny build of a quarterback well suited to the rigors of alpine climbing. When Le Lann decided to hold a RocTrip in Asia, he began researching climbing areas in China and realized that despite the country’s size, only a few crags had been established.

“I thought it would be cool to find an entirely new area to develop,” he said.

Le Lann called Olivier Balma, a friend and fellow countryman with whom he had passed the mountain-guide exam, to see if Balma—who has been living in Beijing and teaching mountaineering for the Chinese Mountain Development Institute (CMDI) since the early 2000s—had any ideas.

“I think I just may have something for you,” Balma said.

Getu is located in the demographically diverse Guizhou province—specifically, in the Ziyun Miao Autonomous County, which is one of the poorest, most remote counties in China. In 2010, the per capita income of local Miao farmers was a mere 3,123 Yuan—less than $500 per year. Yet what this region lacks in wealth, it makes up for in natural and cultural resources.

Green rice paddies populate the cradle of the mountainous landscape, an unfathomable range of karst that begins here in China and stretches 1,500 miles down to Vietnam. Arches similar to the Great Arch—often hundreds of feet tall themselves—and sheer, beautiful walls can be found seemingly everywhere.

“If the Chinese people ever get really psyched on climbing, they’ll have no shortage of places to go,” said Chris Sharma.

As a sport, rock climbing in China is at least 20 years behind the West. The cliffs around major urban cities such as Beijing weren’t developed until the mid to late 1990s. Around that time, Todd Skinner discovered and began developing the climbing in Yangshou—a popular tourist destination well before it became a climbing one. Yet despite the late start, climbing is growing in China. Beijing, for example, now has three popular gyms; five years ago it only had one.

Here in Getu, the Chuanshang Cave (meaning “cave above the bed”) and its surrounding walls were established as a national park by the provincial Guizhou government in the late 1990s. About eight years ago, the government built infrastructure such as a park entrance and the road and stairs up to the Arch.

Getu actually has a history of climbing that predates the modern version. In the village lives a family of seven that calls themselves the “Spidermen of Getu,” and for decades they have practiced the art of free soloing up the walls to harvest saliva from robins’ nests to be used for medicine. Today, the Spidermen hold climbing demonstrations on weekends where they deep-water solo a 100-foot route situated directly over the Getu River.

I met the Spidermen one day. They were dressed in dirty, home-sewn attire, and were huddled under a bridge, cooking pancakes over a fire after their latest demonstration. They pointed out their route. Even with chalk and climbing shoes, I don’t think I’d want to solo this slippery wet, lichen-covered 5.10-looking thing. A fall from anywhere on the route would land you on ledges before you crash into the water.

In the early 2000s, in an effort to bring people to the new park, the government organized a “climbing competition,” which involved speed climbing up 20 feet of artificial plaster holds drilled into the stone (the holds are still there). Officials also built a 30-foot climbing wall in the town square. But aside from these random flirtations with the sport, it wasn’t until 2007 that Getu actually received its first real rock climbs.

The Guizhou Mountaineering Association (GZMA) contacted Oliver Balma and the CMDI to help develop rock climbing in Getu. When Balma first saw the area, he was blown away.

“It was a shock,” he recalls. “This spot had the potential to become a world-class area.”

Balma and his fellow CMDI guides established around 30 easy beginner routes, and held training courses. Yet the park’s most impressive feature, the Great Arch, was left untouched.

In 2009, Le Lann began his hunt for RocTrip locations in China. Balma brought him to Getu, and Le Lann was instantly sold.

“The infrastructure was already here,” said Le Lann. “They already had the wheel turning to develop tourism. I just needed to focus the tourism on climbing.”

Little did he know what a nightmare it would be to actually bring a RocTrip to China.

“Though I had been working here for two years,” said Le Lann, “I wasn’t able to start the approval process with the government officials until 10 days before the RocTrip was scheduled! People could’ve easily shown up for the RocTrip and found a roadblock of 500 Chinese policemen guarding the entrance into the park, and pfft, that’s that.”

Through nothing short of faith that the Chinese government would eventually come around, Le Lann focused his efforts on working with the locals and bringing in climbers to help develop routes.

“I began putting stuff up [about the RocTrip] on the web a year ago, even though I didn’t have the right to,” said Le Lann. “But I could feel something would happen. I was pretty confident.”

In an unprecedented investment for a single event for Petzl, 5,000 bolts, all the other necessary gear, and over $200,000 (most of which went toward travel expenses for climbers) were allocated just to develop the routes.

Petzl brought in more than two dozen route developers that were dubbed the “Drill Dream Team” and included big names such as Dani Andrada, Arnaud Petit, Stephanie Bodet, Michael Fuselier, Yann Guesquiers, Gerhard Horhager, Daniel Du Lac, and Martial Dumas, as well as Chinese climbers and others from Europe, Australia, the U.S., Brazil and Japan. The climbers donated weeks of their time to establish 15 unique sectors within the region, which now boasts a total 300 pitches from 5.6 to 5.14d.

“All the route setters who came here,” said Le Lann. “That was a big, big gift. That was hard work.”

The husband-wife duo of Arnaud Petit and Stephanie Bodet established Lost in Translation (5.13b), which, in four rope-stretching and increasingly run-out pitches, tackles the right side of the Arch and is reported to be one of the region’s best routes. Belays are outfitted with bamboo seats, and the top two pitches of 5.13b are super-exposed journeys through a hanging garden of body-size tufas.

“It’s a bit far to reach Getu, but once you are here, it’s easy,” observes Le Lann. “You can reach all the climbing by foot. And the climbing is very nice: big arch, slabs, caves, multi-pitches, single-pitches.”

An interesting contrast can be drawn between Getu and the better-known Yangshou, which since 2009 has seen a host of problems between climbers, locals and the government. In Yangshou, climbers have had their ropes cut and gear stolen, and been extorted exorbitant fees by local “mafia” in order to climb at crags like White Mountain. In December of 2009, White Mountain was closed to climbing when villagers removed bolt hangers and painted big red letters on the wall that said climbing here would carry fines of 2,000 Yuan ($300).

Earlier that year, an American climber and filmmaker, Mike Call, had his laptop and all of his camera gear stolen out of his hotel room. A few days later during that trip, he came upon a mutilated body in Odin’s Den—one of the caves you pass en route to the famous Moon Hill.

Olivier Balma explains the source of the problems: “In Yangshou, climbers never asked permission to climb there. The local people were never involved in the development. That was a big difference between here and Yangshou. From the get-go the people here have asked climbers to come to Getu.”

During the development of the cliffs, Le Lann brought the local farmers into the process to figure out approaches through their land. Aside from a few requests, such as not to remove trees and to not climb at one large cave, which is a burial ground, the farmers were pro climbing, even showing Le Lann hidden walls such as the amazing 40-meter Banyang’s Cave. (To reach Banyang’s, by the way, involves hiking through incredibly muddy, ox-trodden farms, and by the time you reach the cliff, you feel like you’ve passed through the anus of a water buffalo. Fortunately, the climbing is worth it.)

With the climbs in place, the access secured and the locals eager to bring tourists, Le Lann had to solve the last, and biggest, piece of the puzzle: getting the government’s approval.

In general the Chinese Communist government exerts a repressive reign over its people. Certain freedoms and information is regulated or just banned. Many Western news and blogging sites (like WordPress and Blogspot), certain YouTube videos, and Facebook are all blocked.

“Officials simply could not understand what a ‘festival’ was or what it would look like,” Le Lann said. “Competitions make more sense to them. Typically, any mass gathering in China is extremely regulated and supervised. The government knows exactly who is attending and exactly how long everyone will be staying. With the RocTrip, people would be free to come to Getu and leave as they please, and this was something they couldn’t envision.”

Through compromises and a pre-registration system, the Guizhou government agreed to the event. According to one article on the China-based Ecns.cn, the event marked the first time China allowed a foreign company, Petzl, to explore one of its territories.

During the RocTrip government officials attended and were reportedly pleased. During the event, they held meetings to discuss how this type of event could be translated to other regions within China. Even the governor of the Guizhou province attended.

“For him to come here to this little village means quite a lot in China,” says Le Lann.

Aside from not being able to check Facebook for two weeks, the only example of the iron fist that I saw was during the big closing party on Saturday night, when three scantily clad New Yorkers got up on stage wearing Lycra tights and started dancing suggestively with each other. As “pornography” is illegal in China, officials were left with no choice but to pull the plug on the music till the dancers departed stage right. Eventually, the music was turned back on and the dancing—albeit less sexy dancing—continued.

The Petzl RocTrip an exceptionally progressive event for China. The RocTrip is now being used by officials as a model—called the “Ziyun Getu Valley Mode”—for other events within Guizhou, which, according to China News Week, aims to revitalize its image by becoming China’s “province of mountain sports.”

Though the RocTrip ended, Le Lann’s work is not over.

“We put so much effort into developing this place, if we leave now, we will miss something,” says Le Lann. “We need to finish it—that is why we are working to turn Getu into a national climbing park, with a school, perhaps.

“For sure people will be coming back. That is my hope, that this place will be alive with climbers in the future.”

TRAVEL LOGISTICS

Flights: Flights to Guiyang connect through Beijing or Shanghai. Alternatively, trains travel to Guiyang from all major cities. The train from Shanghai to Guiyang is 27 hours, and the train from Hong Kong is two days. Avoid flights with lots of connections and short layovers. Three-hour layovers are minimum to ensure time to make connections and pass through customs.

Visa: You need a tourist visa to enter China; use a visa service such as Zierer (zvs.com). Before you can begin the visa process (which takes about three weeks), however, you need to buy your plane ticket as well as show that you are booked into a hotel room somewhere. You can make a hotel reservation in Guiyang on Expedia et al.—try the hotels on Zhonghua North Road or the ones around Yunnan Square, which average about $50/night. Each country is different, however, so check with your Chinese embassy to see exactly what documents are required.

Money: There are no ATMs, banks or credit-card-friendly merchants in Getu, so stock up on cash before you go. We exchanged money in the airport in Los Angeles while waiting for our flight to Beijing. (Avoid black-market exchanges.) Ask for small bills, because no one in Getu has change. The exchange rate is roughly 1 Chinese Yuan (RMB) to $0.15 U.S. About $450 U.S. (3,000 RMB) should be enough for food, hotels and travel expenses over two weeks. Once you get to Getu, you won’t spend much money.

Getting to Getu: The last leg involves a 5-hour-plus drive and is the crux of the trip. Renting a car would be suicide, and beside that, you don’t need one in Getu. The best, easiest and most expensive option is to take a taxi directly to Getu. A four-person taxi will cost about 1,000 RMB ($150). Alternatively, a bus station in the south side of Guiyang has a regular bus schedule. You want the Guiyang-Anshun-Ziyun bus. Ziyun is the last major town before Getu and is a good place to stock up on wine (if you can find it), local green tea, fresh fruit and any kind of familiar-looking snacks. A minibus runs from Ziyun to Getu (1 hour). The government is rumored to have impending plans to install a major highway from Guiyang to Getu, and that would cut the drive down from 5-plus hours to under two hours.

Getu GPS coordinates: N25°41’10.95”E106°15’50.18”

Travel Gear: Most of the beds in Getu are thin and uncomfortable, so consider bringing a sleeping pad and bag, even if you’re staying at a hotel. Don’t drink the water without filtering it—bring a SteriPen or iodine. Bottled water can be purchased throughout town.

Food: The food in Getu is quite good: a bowl of rice noodles with a fried egg on top for breakfast; rice and an assortment of stir-fried vegetables and suspicious meats at night. But that’s it. Plan on bringing all of your snacks and lunches and maybe even some MREs for dinner to mix it up. Bring plenty of beef jerky, bars, chocolate, oatmeal, and all your own coffee. If you like whisky, etc., bring that. The local liquor is called bijou and tastes like lighter fluid.

CLIMBING LOGISTICS

Season: The best time of year to visit is the end of October, when the light shines through the Great Arch. It is also one of the driest times of year. That said, a local proverb proclaims that Getu never sees more than three days without rain. Plan accordingly for this wet, humid, cool climate.

Clothing: Rain jacket or umbrella. Synthetic belay coat (it gets quite cold up in the Great Arch). Approach shoes that can get muddy/wet. Lots of synthetic clothing, which will dry out better than cotton and down.

Gear: Helmet. 80-meter rope or two. 24 quickdraws minimum. Ascenders (such as Tibloc) for getting back onto the wall in the event of a fall, on a multi-pitch. Many multi-pitch routes in the arch have bosun’s seats fixed at hanging belays; however, you may want to bring your own or have a local make you one out of bamboo.

Best Crags

Fish Crag/Secret Garden: Bullet yellow and blue limestone. Gently overhanging. 15 routes from 5.11a to 5.13a. 1 hour approach.

Oliver’s Crag: Fun jug-pulling right off the road. 15 routes from 5.9 to 5.12b.

Rasta Man Crag: If you climb 5.10, and like tufas and pockets, this is one of the best places to go. A dozen routes, short approach, routes from 5.8 to 5.11a.

Pussa Yan: Le Casse-Tete Chinois (5.11d, six pitches). One of the first cliffs you see upon entering Getu is this tall triangular face embedded with the shape of the “Pussa Yan” (“Mother Superior Protector”). This six-pitch route was bolted ground up by Daniel Dulac and Jean-Luc Jeunet. A steep descent down a ridgeline for 70 meters to a cairn; go left of the cairn down more steep terrain. Remain left of a flank of a small rock notch.

Banyang’s Cave: Not to be missed if you climb 5.13. Twenty routes as tall as 40 meters, from 5.10 to Michael Fuselier’s cryptic Kung Fu Panda (5.14a).

Great Arch/Chuanshang Cave: To reach the Arch, continue down the road through town, through the park entrance, to reach a dock with a ferry. Cross the river, and hike up the staircase to the Arch. There are more than 100 pitches here from 5.8 to 5.14d, as well as six multi-pitch routes. Standouts include:

Dos Forasteros en la Selva, 4 pitches (5.11c, 5.11c, 5.11b, 5.11a): A fantastic moderate with four distinct, unique pitches. This is also a good rap route for all the other multi-pitch routes (it can be accessed by bushwhacking through foliage at the top of the cliff). Rap with one 80-meter rope.
The Brazilian Fuse, 4 pitches (5.11a, 5.12a, 5.11d, 5.12b). Another amazing multi-pitch. Can also be used as a rap route.
Lost in Translation, 4 pitches (5.12b, 5.13a, 5.13b/c, 5.13b/c). A masterpiece—steep, runout in parts, a journey. Rap one of the above two routes.