I knew little of what to expect as we headed out of Lijiang, crammed in the back seat of a mianbaoche with a motley crew of local co-passengers. They chatted happily away in the language of the Naxi people, mostly indecipherable even to my linguistically gifted Chinese companion.

We had just gotten off the night train from Kunming and were starting the 115-kilometer drive west to the village of Liming (黎明) in the northern part of Laojunshan National Park (老君山国家公园). At Liming we were to join up with experienced rock climber friends to learn the basics of a very specific form of climbing — ascending fissures in sandstone cliffs the "traditional" way, in which climbers painfully cram their appendages into cracks to pull themselves upward, simultaneously using pieces of removable protective equipment wedged into these cracks to catch and hold the leading climber in the event of a fall.

We were excited about the opportunity to climb and had heard the name Liming uttered in hushed reverence by experienced climbers, but