Quiet snow and ice mountains

Silent iceberg, this is the title of the second travel book I am writing. The reason why I named this book is that the content in the book is mostly about snow-capped mountains and glaciers, and the second is that snow-capped mountains and glaciers have a powerful atmosphere of talking to themselves. In front of the ice wall in Wan Ren, my tiny self has no thoughts except awe. Now, I'd like to take "Silent Iceberg" as the title of this article, in memory of Wang Xiangjun, who has never met before, but is a fellow soul.

? I only got to know Wang Xiangjun two years ago, and I was briefed by my friends in Tibet. One day at the beginning of this year, a friend sent me some videos taken by Wang Xiangjun in the Himalayas. I couldn't help laughing when I watched him yell at the magnificent iceberg. I think this young man is too frank and cute. I had hoped to meet him on the glacier one day, but now it seems impossible. As a person who also loves nature and snow mountain glaciers, I understand his "madness" very well. If I were thirty years younger, I might go the same way as him.

Maybe it's a coincidence that we were hooked by the snow-capped mountains in the same area in the same year, or we began to be fascinated by them. He fell in love with Yulong Snow Mountain, and I fell in love with Haba Snow Mountain opposite Yulong Snow Mountain. The two mountains are similar in height. Originally, the mountains were connected together, but with thousands of years of geological changes, their birthplace was washed out by the torrent of Jinsha River and became one of the deepest canyons in the world. Now, between the two mountains is the famous scenic spot Tiger Leaping Gorge.

? Yulong Snow Mountain is not allowed to climb because the mountain shape is steep and there are many falling rocks. Haba Snow Mountain is not as dangerous as Yulong, so it has always been open to mountain climbers. Although Haba Snow Mountain is not too difficult to climb, the glacier scale is much larger than Yulong Snow Mountain.

May 20 13, traveling in Shangri-La, Yunnan. On a whim, I hired a local tour guide and climbed the Haba Snow Mountain alone. Although the summit was successfully reached, the process was embarrassing. Due to poor equipment and frostbite of fingers, the shoes were all soaked in water, and they were almost blown off the ice cliff by high-altitude wind. After this climb, we have a feeling that our ignorance of the snow-capped mountains has led to our own recklessness. Looking back on that reckless climb, I still have a lingering fear.

After many times of climbing and hiking in the snow-capped mountains, I became cautious. Because, I know, life is not just for you. However, mountaineering is a high-risk sport after all, and distress is inevitable. The key is to be prepared for danger. So in recent years, although I have experienced the dangers of falling into the ice cracks in Queer Mountain and getting lost in Mount Everest, I have saved the day because of proper measures.

But not everyone is so lucky. Falling in love with snow-capped mountains and glaciers is, in a sense, falling in love with death. Although with the development of technology, the death rate of high-altitude mountaineering is obviously decreasing, there are still many mountaineering accidents every year, mainly mountain diseases and some accidents of climbing itself.

Climbing the snow-capped mountains seems to be a kind of fate, an accidental and inevitable coincidence and interlacing, which determines life and death instantly. Although the reason is hard to figure out, it should be said that it is mainly human factors.

Yesterday, I saw the video taken by my colleague before the accident in Wang Xiangjun, and I couldn't help feeling sorry. When the accident happened, he didn't wear crampons on his feet, didn't take an ice pick in his hand, and didn't wear a safety rope. This is a no-no! I can't figure out why he didn't take safety measures. How can you walk on the glacier in ordinary hiking boots and face such a deep and steep glacier slope? Perhaps, he is really too confident!

? Wang Xiangjun's experience reminds me of my friend Hao Xin, who is quite influential in mountaineering. Last year, he and Hong Kong mountaineer Jia Jie were killed by an avalanche while climbing in northern Pakistan. Hao Xin was the leader who climbed the Rongbu Glacier on Mount Everest three years ago. Two years before their death, Hao and Jia Jie successfully climbed Mount Momei in Siguniang Mountain in the Alps. Although Momei Peak is only over 6200 meters above sea level, it is definitely a very difficult mountain to climb. Even for professional climbers, it is extremely difficult to reach the top of this mountain.

I also thought of Hao Xin's death. Is he too confident? But afterwards, a friend from the mountaineering community told me that Hao Xin's death had nothing to do with self-confidence. One night, they were killed by a sudden avalanche.

I still have Hao Xin's WeChat, just like my other dead friends' phone numbers and WeChat, which can't be deleted. Maybe it will never be deleted. Because it will make me feel that my friend is still alive. Although this is an illusion, I like this illusion.

People often ask, is it worth dying because of climbing mountains? This will actually involve the discussion about the significance of mountaineering. I always feel that mountaineering itself is meaningless, it is just a sport. If you have to say meaning, it is only a feeling of the climber himself, and there is nothing qualitative or quantitative to measure or demonstrate. But from another point of view, mountaineering is of great significance, and its significance lies in carrying forward the brave spirit. This seems to be a tall explanation, but it is not tall at all, because courage is the most internalized character that a nation and even every individual should have. If it is lost, people have no dignity.

However, what makes me sad is that some people criticized Wang Xiangjun's experience on some online platforms. Here, I can hardly find the right language to comment on these people. I just want to say that you can express your incomprehension, but you can't use your cognition to criticize other people's behavior. Because you are not tall enough, the pattern is too small. Just like a chicken scolds the eagle flying so high in the barn for bluffing and posturing, this is a dislocation of thinking stubble, and its huge mental crack can never be bridged.

In my opinion, Wang Xiangjun's behavior should go far beyond climbing in the general sense. It is understood that over the years, it seems that he has never carried out a climbing activity for the purpose of reaching the top. He basically aims at observing glaciers and has been walking in the hinterland of icebergs, not at the top of icebergs. However, he noticed the ecological crisis caused by the rapid melting of glaciers, which also made his later iceberg trip have a different kind of new ideas, which made him change from novelty hunting to advocating environmental protection.

I understand his change. Anyone who often goes deep into the snow mountain glacier will be shocked by the environmental characteristics caused by the rapid melting of the glacier. One afternoon in September this year, Tang Fengzhong, a famous plateau photographer in Jiangsu who went to Zhuoao to visit the snow-capped mountains with me, suddenly said with emotion: Life flies so fast! Engaged in photography for nearly 30 years, busy, mediocre, suddenly old.

I admire old Tang very much. In the process of taking pictures, he was deeply stung by the unbearable situation on the glacier, and then he changed from the perspective of scenery to the perspective of environmental protection to photograph snow-capped mountains and glaciers. For decades, he climbed the ice and lay on the snow-capped mountains and experienced hardships. I said, you have accumulated so many comparative data on the evolution of contemporary glaciers, aroused people's awareness of environmental protection, and made your photography have a distinct and clear theme, which is quite remarkable! How can it be said to be mediocre!

So is Wang Xiangjun. He bought many valuable and informative pictures with his life, reminded mankind with facts and sounded the alarm of environmental protection. His whistle spread all over the iceberg until it echoed in the venue of the United Nations World Climate Conference. This height of life is beyond the reach of few people.

Yes, I know that people who don't understand his accidental death will be in the majority, because most people's pursuit and understanding of life, as Wang Shuo said: Many people's lives are mostly like this, eating and drinking Lazar after work, and their parents are short-lived and trivial. What they see is only the real interests in a narrow world.

This is life, and that is life. It is normal for everyone to live a smooth life under different circumstances. I think Wang Xiangjun's life is short, but it is much more meaningful than the average person. His footsteps have reached places that are difficult for ordinary people to reach. This may be his wonderful and extraordinary!

The iceberg is silent and the spirit is eternal!