Mountains and Tea: The World of Jeff Fuchs
It’s morning and the sun is shining, but at 15 degrees below zero and a metre of snow on the ground, it’s tough going at 5,000 metres above sea level. Still, pushing on through the snow, awe-inspiring peaks loom in the distance like deities judging the scene from on high. Trudging forward, you suddenly meet a pair of travellers heading towards you. After a brief greeting, you see they are taking a path that leads down to their home in a valley thousands of feet below. It’s another day in the life of Himalayan explorer Jeff Fuchs.
Jeff Fuchs (pronounced ‘books’ with an ‘f’) has been mountaineering since he was five years old, finding his footing during trips to the Swiss Alps throughout his childhood. In 2002, a friend of his recommended he check out the Eastern Himalayas in Yunnan Province. From his first visit, Fuchs fell in love with this part of the world for its culture, its tea and, of course, its mountains. Settling there and becoming fluent in Chinese and Tibetan, Fuchs now spends the majority of his time in Yunnan’s Shangri-La planning expeditions in the nearby mountains. “The Himalayas have this mystique. It’s a great place not just for technical climbing, but also for the culture of the region and the trade routes passing through it. To imagine goods going over trails at over 5,000 metres is unlike anything else.”
In his explorations, Fuchs has sought to follow the trails of these ancient trade routes winding through the mountains that once carried tea from China to Tibet and beyond. One expedition along the Ancient Tea Horse Road, an arduous 6,000 kilometre trek through the Himalayas, resulted in his 2008 book, The Ancient Tea Horse Road: Travels with the Last of the Muleteers. In navigating these ancient trails, Fuchs admits they fulfil a certain fantasy for him, almost as if engaging in time travel.
“I try to make sure we do it in a way as similar to the ancient traders as we can. Without doing it that way, we don’t get a real taste of the trials and tribulations of the route. I often feel like I’m drifting back in time when I’m travelling, but then I remember I’m doing it with Gore-Tex. But these ancient traders were wearing leather. These guys were beyond hardcore, they knew no other way.”
And while these expeditions are stunning in the depth of their cultural richness, they are also perilous. Fuchs recalls a close scrape with death that occurred while on the Ancient Tea Horse Road. “It didn’t happen to me, but one of the local Tibetans who didn’t have much experience climbing. We were at 5,000 metres on a thin ridgeline pass covered with snow and ice. He was walking in front of me and turned around to speak to me when suddenly he fell down to the left onto a piece of sheer ice leading down towards the massive crevasse. There was nothing I could do as he slid down the mountain. Somehow he managed to stop himself and slowly came to a halt about 40 to 50 metres from the crevasse, then slowly worked his way back up.”
Building on his respect for the mountains and the peoples of the region through his travels, Fuchs’ appreciation for the teas that once travelled along these roads has also blossomed, resulting in the founding of his company Jalam Teas (jalam is Tibetan for ‘tea road’). Fuchs describes the development as “a natural progression. I’ve just let tea and the mountains take me where they will. I really feel like I’m not suited to anything else. I’m attached to them for the remainder of my days.”
At the end of last month, Fuchs and his team set out for an expedition on a trail around the mountain Kawa Karpo, one of the Tibetan world’s most sacred peaks. “Reverence for the Kawa Karpo range pre-dates Buddhism as part of the animistic belief system that existed throughout the Himalayas. These beliefs were so strong that it was kept on by the newer Buddhist religions,” says Fuchs.
During their trek, Fuchs and his team crossed the deadly 4,800 metre Shola Pass. “I’ve been over it three times. Before I did it for the first time, an old trader told the whole team about the two faces of Shola. When the weather is good it’s a utopia of grasslands, but during the sudden blizzards, it’s a white inferno. Every spring they find the bodies of pilgrims and travellers up there who have been lost in the storms.”
But despite the risks, Fuchs presses on, happy to find himself amongst the peaks that he calls home. “It’s a nice place to have your swan song. You get this feeling sometimes that if you never make it back, this would be an okay place to end up.”
Jeff Fuchs will appear at 2pm on Sunday, March 11 at the 2012 Shanghai Literary Festival on. Web: www.jefffuchs.com
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