At least we set out
Last year, Chan hiked the second southern segment of the Central Mountain Range trail system, from the Dongpu trailhead to the Xiangyang trailhead. While stopping at Jiaming Lake, he met Chang Yuan-chih, who was working at the mountain cabin where he stopped over. As the two chatted, Chang mentioned that he was planning to climb K2, the world’s second-tallest mountain, with Lu Chung-han.
Chan had learned about K2 as a boy, and knew that the 8611-meter-tall “savage mountain” was very dangerous to climb.
He decided to organize some friends to help the two young climbers raise the money they would need for a support team that would make their attempt safer. Chan also wanted to use Chang and Lu’s climb to communicate with Taiwanese society at large, seeing it as an opportunity to let people know that two young people were willing to invest more than a decade of effort into achieving their dreams. He wanted to encourage people to remain curious about unfamiliar parts of the world, and be willing to take on challenges and explore. “If every Taiwanese person could find their own personal K2 to challenge, and then put their all into climbing it, Taiwan could easily make it through the morass of its current transformation,” says Chan.
These kinds of ideas led to the fundraising effort’s “K2, We Too” slogan. Chan had the names of the 2283 people who contributed money to the climbers’ attempt inscribed on the flag the two young men carried up the mountain, to encourage us all to seek our own personal K2s.
Mid-July looked like the perfect time for the climb—the weather on K2 was unusually good, and Lu and Chang were in tiptop condition. But faced with an elevated risk of avalanches on the descent, they decided to halt their ascent at 8200 meters.
“We felt that setting out to make our climb was more important than reaching the summit, because most Taiwanese never do. In Taiwan, setting out is the hardest part.” In Chan’s view, the act of setting out was equivalent to achieving 80% or 90% of their objective. Plus, this year’s experience would set a benchmark for future attempts on big peaks by Taiwanese climbers.
Mountain climbing is a way to experience the natural world, one that gives climbers a sense of being truly and vibrantly alive.