January 3, 1991.
This is the highest peak in Yunnan Province - Meili Snow Mountain, with an altitude of 6,740 meters.
The Sino-Japanese joint mountaineering team gathered in the hinterland of Meili Snow Mountain to prepare for the final sprint to challenge this virgin peak. The snow continues to fall. Just after 22:00, Camp No. 3 and the base camp located at an altitude of 5,100 meters began the last communication of the day.
Camp No. 3: "The snow in Camp No. 3 is very heavy now, and the visibility is poor. The snow is 1.2 meters thick."
Base Camp: "Snow removal operations are needed."
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Camp No. 3: "We do snow removal every 23 hours. If this situation continues, the snow accumulation may exceed 2 meters."
(At this time, the intercom buzzed Noise.)
Base camp: "The battery is low, please replace the intercom."
Camp No. 3: "The battery has been replaced, how is it now?"
Base Camp: "Still the same. Is it because of the high humidity caused by the heavy snow?"
Camp No. 3: "Stop the communication, goodbye."
Base Camp : "Goodbye."
22:15, communication terminated.
This is the last contact with the seventeen members of the mountaineering team.
/ /
Mountain climbers walking down a steep slope in heavy snow. Below is a slope of hundreds of meters.
On January 3, 1991, the second largest mountain disaster in the history of human mountaineering occurred in the Meili Snow Mountain in Yunnan. Seventeen members of the China-Japan Friendship Joint Mountaineering Team were hit by an avalanche and all died. In the history of modern mountaineering for more than a hundred years, Meili Snow Mountain has become the only mountain that humans cannot climb.
The mountaineering team members stayed in the snow-capped mountains forever, leaving behind only their grieving relatives and their mountaineering team members who were unwilling to accept the failure of the mountaineering plan that they had been planning for many years. Kobayashi Shoei, a member of the Kyoto University mountaineering team, is one of the particularly unwilling ones.
Because he was going back to his hometown, Xiaolin Shangli did not participate in the summit of Meili Snow Mountain, thus escaping a disaster. He was in his third year of college at the time. Among the team members who died, there were his seniors and friends who were in the same grade as him.
What makes Kobayashi Naomi sad is that as time goes by, he finds that the memories of being with his teammates Shuni Sasakura and Yusuke Kodama who were killed gradually fade away. "Why am I like this? I want to keep and... The memory of their life together." A bold idea came to Xiaolin Shangli's mind: to go to Meili Snow Mountain to search for the remains of the victims.
However, it is not easy to find the remains of the victims in the vast Meili Snow Mountain. Although both China and Japan have been actively searching for a period of time, there has been no harvest.
Meili Snow Mountain Disaster Monument
In July 1998, more than seven years after the accident, when everyone gradually gave up hope of finding the relics and the team members, the foot of Meili Snow Mountain Exciting news came from Mingyong Village in Mingyong: Some villagers discovered the remains and relics of a mountaineering team member near the Mingyong Glacier. China and Japan immediately organized a search team to Mingyong Village to recover the remains. The families of the deceased team members also went together.
It was this body search operation that changed Xiaolin Shangyi’s life. In the following more than 20 years, we repeatedly searched deep into the Meili Snow Mountain and successfully found 16 bodies.
During the search for the remains, Xiaolin had direct contact with the Mingyong villagers under the Mingyong Glacier where the remains were found for the first time, and then he realized the local people's rejection and hatred of climbing Meili Snow Mountain; as a long-term resident in Mingyong Village The executor of the long-term search for remains and relics, he stayed at the home of the village chief Tashi and interacted with the locals with trepidation. In the years that followed, he walked step by step through snowfields, forests, rocks and deep valleys that he and his teammates had once ignored, gaining a deeper understanding of the villagers' lives and beliefs.
The family of the head of Tashi Village. From the left are, Yangzong, Tashi, Karma Cili, Dolma Lhamo, younger brother.
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Meili Snow Mountain disaster, the Chinese version of "Meili Snow Mountain: Searching for Seventeen Friends" written by Xiaolin Shangli was released. With plain and delicate words, this book records the heartbreaking and terrifying mountain disaster, the arduous search, the mysterious features of Meili Snow Mountain, the simple life of the people at the foot of the mountain, three trips to the mountain and the changes in local life. It especially includes photos developed from the film of mountain disaster relics. This is the first time that photos of mountain disaster relics have been made public.
The following is authorized to publish the preface written by anthropologist Guo Jing for this book and the chapter "Kawagbo under the Moonlight in October". The pictures accompanying this article are all from "Meili Snow Mountain: Looking for Seventeen Friends".
"Meili Snow Mountain: Searching for Seventeen Friends", (Japanese) written by Kobayashi Shangli, translated by Wu Nier, Yuefu Culture Beijing United Publishing Company January 2021 edition
Human Should there be limits to our adventures?
Author | Guo Jing (Researcher of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences)
When we were planning a commemorative book series for the 30th anniversary of the Meili Mountain Tragedy, Xiao Lin Shangli raised a question, this The matter has passed in Japan, why do the Chinese still care so much? I remember that my answer was a bit vague at the time, which did not satisfy him or myself. However, an epidemic broke out at the end of 2019 and continues to this day, as if God has revealed the answer——
Western modern civilization has established a logic during hundreds of years of rapid development, that is, dividing the world into Spiritual "human" and non-spiritual "nature", and this distinction is solidified in a pyramid-like classification system. The main purpose of adventure sports, which originated in the 15th century, is the "civilized" exploration and control of "wilderness" and "primitive"; using magnificent mountains and rivers to demonstrate personal courage and wisdom has also become the core values ??of adventure sports.
The watershed between the Lancang River and the Nu River—Dokla Ya (4480 meters). The mountain-turners pray devoutly to the Mani pile at the pass.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, mountaineering and scientific research operations in the Himalayan snow-capped mountains gradually moved away from the early days of individual efforts and entered an era of competition among heroes. Meridian Mountain was the most radical wave of this trend, but it failed miserably even though it was well-supplied and well-prepared. The root cause of its frustration is an underestimation of the power of nature, and this power is not only manifested in sudden avalanches, but also in the form of local sacred mountain beliefs.
The setback at Mount Meriden may seem difficult to compare with the disaster spreading across the continent, but they both use death to highlight two core issues that have been obscured by technology and economic prosperity: humankind and How should nature, culture and culture relate to each other.
This snow-capped mountain peak, called "Meili" by climbers and tourists, means "white snow" (Kawagbo) in Tibetan. This name contains a profound meaning: it not only has the natural shape of rocks and forests, but is also endowed with divinity that humans fear. For thousands of years, local people have relied on Kawagbo's protection, thus delineating an insurmountable boundary between humans and the sacred world.
The so-called "Mountain God" is the symbol of a power that has huge power, can bless, and can also destroy many small lives. However, looking at the mountains, rivers, lakes and seas where we live, humans who think they are at the top of the biological chain are everywhere invading sacred forests, ice peaks, wetlands, and beaches, "cleansing" the species and landscapes they hate, and at the same time, they are bound to be The biosphere self-corrects and is retaliated against. The focus of this conflict is precisely the question that we always avoid but can no longer avoid when facing disasters: Is nature divine? Should there be limits to human exploration?
View of the summit of Meili Snow Mountain from Camp No. 2 (photographed by the deceased mountaineers)
The explorers were caught up in such a violent conflict and had to bear the brunt of the unforeseen consequences.
As a climber with ideals but caught in the "Mosken Maelstrom", Kobayashi did not escape like others. Of course, his original intention was not to understand what the sacred mountain is. In fact, the Japanese also believe in mountain gods, but in their culture, pilgrims can climb to the top of the mountain and pray to the gods. He originally went to search for the remains of his friends, just like Mizushima in "The Harp of Burma". After the end of World War II, he stayed in Southeast Asia to collect the bones of dead soldiers and give their souls a home.
On August 5, 1999, I followed the village chief Tashi, villagers Dawa and Xiaolin Shangli to the glacier to film their search for the remains of the victims. At that time, Xiao Lin knew very little about Tibetans and even had doubts. When I went to Tashi's house a month later, he had already established a preliminary friendship with the family. Twelve-year-old Bai Matsim and 11-year-old Songjipinchu chatted with him in Tibetan and Chinese. Da Tashi took advantage of the wine to popularize the basic knowledge of Kawagebo belief with him. A tradition that is older and deeper than adventure, seeps into the bodies and minds of Japanese guests like alcohol. Just like Gauguin and Locke, the rebellious man who escaped from the city but was trapped in the mountains slowly shed his hard armor and transformed into a photographer and explorer of mountain culture.
This example of identity and soul transformation is exceptional in the history of exploration. I was lucky enough to witness this legend on an ordinary road, witnessing the story of a climber being transformed by the snow-capped mountains. This story may predict a future: at a time when various conflicts are becoming more intense, even with the meager strength of an individual, a gap can be opened in the wall separating culture and culture, human beings and ecological landscape, and a glimmer of hope can be penetrated. Light.
The mountain disaster brought despair, but it also brought a story about an ordinary person who reversed his destiny. To be precise, Xiao Lin did his best, but the destiny that promoted this unmanned work also came from the mountain god of the velvet land. He would mercilessly bury the bodies of climbers, but ultimately rescued their souls.
Team members transporting supplies on sleds. The snow between Camp 2 and Camp 3 is soft and easy to sink when you step on it, so using a sled is an effective method. (Photo of the relics)
Kawagbo under the moonlight
Author (Japanese) Kobayashi Shangyi
Translator | Unil
Entering October, the corn has begun to be coated with a layer of golden color. The beginning of October was already the end of the rainy season, and I set out with the villagers of Mingyong Village to start our trip to Meili Snow Mountain.
Meili Snow Mountain is located in the transition zone from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the plains with an average altitude of 4,000 meters. Because there are three large rivers flowing from north to south and steep mountains parallel to them that block east-west traffic, this mountain range is called the "Hengduan Mountains". These three major rivers are the Jinsha River (the upper reaches of the Yangtze River), the Lancang River (the upper reaches of the Mekong River), and the Nu River (the upper reaches of the Salween River).
The mountain road in Meili Snow Mountain is a long mountain road from the main stream of the Lancang River to the Nu River through the watershed at an altitude of about 5,000 meters, and then back to the Lancang River through the watershed. Starting from the hot dry valley where cacti grow, passing through the forest area with the fragrance of matsutake, and climbing to the cold pass full of alpine plants, the climate diversity along the way is so staggering that it is hard to believe that all of it actually belongs to the same area.
Looking at the main peak from Camp 2. The black spot in the distance of Camp 2 may be an alternative location for Camp 3. (The picture is the film print of the mountain disaster relics released for the first time)
The twenty-day journey around the mountains allowed me to observe this land from a broader perspective. After seeing people living around the mountain and believers coming from far away places to visit the mountain, I truly felt the existence of Meili Snow Mountain as a noble faith.
After finishing the mountain tour, I realized my ignorance about Meili Snow Mountain and felt abandoned by the mountain. But it was precisely because of this feeling that I made up my mind to take pictures of Meili Snow Mountain seriously. I started planning to experience every different season in this land.
After walking back up the mountain, I found that there was still no snow on the glacier, so I decided to search again. At this time, the mountains were completely filled with pleasant autumn scenery.
This time new remains were found. This is the last glacier search of the year. A total of ten searches were conducted this year and the remains of seven people were identified. They are Sasaki Tetsuo, Kudo Shunji, Zongmori Yukio, Wang Jianhua, Lin Wensheng, Inoue Jiro, and Li Zhiyun. Including the remains discovered last year, the remains of twelve team members have been identified. Alongside this work was another achievement. There has never been a formal measurement of the flow rate of Mingyong Glacier in history. We conducted actual measurements while conducting search work and learned that the horizontal flow rate of Mingyong Glacier is 32 meters per month. In addition, it can be calculated from the distance moved by the remains that the flow rate of Mingyong Glacier is between 200 meters and 500 meters per year.
Remains search site. Chief Tashi and the others are crossing the crevasse at the end of the glacier.
According to research by glaciologists, the fastest flow rate of glaciers in the Himalayas is only tens of meters per year. The flow rate of Mingyong Glacier is about ten times that value. Such glacier flow speed illustrates the heavy snowfall in Meili Snow Mountain and the steep terrain of the mountain. When introducing the Mingyong Glacier, geographical magazines and newspapers said: "(It) is probably the fastest-flowing mountain glacier in the world."
Among the seventeen people killed were experts in ice, snow and meteorological research. They paid the price with their lives to let us know about the existence of such a glacier.
In late October, the rainy season is completely over. I have never seen such a clear blue sky. Meili Snow Mountain can be seen all day long. Because of the snowfall in the summer, there is more snow on the top of the mountain.
In the surrounding mountains, you can clearly see the red leaves spreading from the top of the hillside to the foot of the mountain. The corn in the field has been harvested, and the walnut leaves are slowly turning golden yellow.
Base camp for the body collection team.
In the gap between walking around the mountains and before returning to Japan, I began to have the opportunity to take pictures of Kawagbo at night. Although I have tried many times before, I have never been successful due to the bad weather in summer.
Tonight, the moon will be full. Bathed in the melting moonlight, the snow-capped mountains under the night sky are clear. I went to the roof of the house with the best shooting angle, set up the tripod, opened the shutter of the camera, spread out my sleeping bag and lay down. Two hours later, the alarm clock rang, and I opened my eyes uneasily, thinking: "I wonder what the weather will be like?"
"Great! It's still sunny!"
Under the night sky, the Meili Snow Mountain looks like floating white silk, as if the mountain itself is a white luminous body. What an incredible sight!
After closing the shutter, I immediately move on to the next exposure. I did five takes that night. Looking at the starry sky and slowly falling asleep, I am really at the peak of happiness.
At 6:30 in the morning, the sky slowly gets brighter. It's a bit cold, but it's a sunny day and the camera is still on. At 7:30, a ray of light shines on the top of Meili Snow Mountain. This is the moment when the sun rises. The thin, peach-colored light gradually became stronger and soon covered the entire mountain top. The moment it illuminated the mountain, the morning light suddenly turned pink like a burning flame, and then gradually turned orange-red. When the light of the first day reached the foot of the mountain, the light turned into a less dazzling golden yellow, just like the surging passion returning to calm.
This process actually only lasted about ten minutes, and I kept staring with bated breath. This was my first mysterious encounter with Kawagebo in the four months since I arrived here.
Kawagbo under the moonlight. No one has ever climbed to the top of this sacred mountain. The place with lights at the bottom of the mountain is Feilai Temple Village.
At the end of October, I will leave the village. That day, I was packing my luggage in the house, and Tashi walked in with something in his hand. "Xiao Lin, this is my idea, take it back to Japan and drink it." He said and handed me a bottle of wine.
It says on the side: "A farewell gift to my Japanese friend, Mingyong Village Chief, Tashi." I like this gift very much. Ani and Ajia sent a bag of walnuts and a bag of tsampa respectively. The huge bags made me feel a little embarrassed, but I understood that they were sincere and kind, so I accepted them gratefully.
Tashi said: "Although we may not be able to come again in the near future, we will definitely meet again when our hair is gray."
"Thank you! I will definitely come again. ”
We shook hands tightly.
I have real feelings in my heart about my acquaintance with him. This is the first time I have trusted a person from another country so unreservedly. Because of getting along with Tashi and the villagers, my thinking about mountains has changed. Meili Snow Mountain is no longer just a "climbing goal", but has become a sacred mountain called "Kawagbo".
I asked Ani: "Which season is your favorite?"
"Of course it is during the Spring Festival in winter. We will make mountains of delicious food. Dancing all day long.”
After hearing this answer, I secretly decided to visit here again.
In the evening, friends from the village came to say goodbye, and some even brought me wine as a farewell gift.
The car from Deqin arrived, and we loaded the remains and relics into the car. When it got dark, I bid farewell to Mingyong Village in front of the villagers. We all smiled and agreed to meet again. After the car drove out of the village, I looked up again. Just like when I came, Kawagebo was hidden in the heavy clouds and mist.
"Yalasuo!" Morning prayer to Kawagbo.
Author Xiaolin Shangli Guo Jing
Excerpt Li Yongbo
Editor Xu Yuedong
Proofreading Li Xiangling