The Face of Crag Closure at White Mountain
Inter-village conflicts at White Mountain are slowly moving towards resolution. The Yansi Village erected the barrier shown in the photo last week and they have been preventing climbers from using the crag. The other village is working with governmental officials for a resolution to land-use-right ownership issues that have always plagued the crag. These issues must be addressed before we can move ahead with other development plans.
Closure Sign at entrance to White Mountain Crag
[...] That evening, I visited my local friend Ton Ton at her bar Bar98, and I bumped into Bob Keaty, who is the founder and the director of Yangshuo Access Initiative (YAI). Naturally I asked him whether somebody is considering a service project to teach local kids how to climb. Bob responded, “I have been wanting to teach local farmers about climbing. They ask me what climbing is all the time. I plan to persuade Chinese guiding services to engage in the project.” I knew Bob speaks fluent Mandarin, but not until that evening, did I realize “fluent” was an understatement. Bob went to school in Taiwan, married a Taiwanese woman, and has been working in Shanghai for years. The only thing to make Bob not Chinese is his appearance. Interestingly, the combination of a western look and a thorough understanding of Chinese culture won him friendship from many local farmers easily, which makes him a perfect representative of YAI. From him, I learned about many access issues in Yangshuo originating from conflicting interests among guiding services, independent climbers, and local farmers. One of the bigger news he told me was that in May, White Mountain was forced to close up once. (Currently, White Mountain is closed again.) [...]