“I walked for six years on the short, 10km route to the summit,” Jinbin Li FIPA smiles, as he recalls the preparation – both physical and mental – that was required to make it to the summit of Muztagh Ata.
The mountain is located on the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, far closer to cities in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India than it is to Guangzhou, where Li works as CFO and a director of FMCG business Kingdom Healthcare.
The remote peak rises between the Karakoram range, which contains four summits over 8,000m including K2, and the Pamir range.
Li’s physical preparation began six years earlier, soon after waking up from ankle surgery in a Guangzhou hospital.
“I had climbed two mountains in China, both over 6,000m, in 2017,” says Li, who has also held the roles of Finance Director of Shenzhen PepsiCo, Financial Controller for International Brands with Carlsberg Brewery China, Financial Controller and Company Secretary for San Miguel Brewery South China, and Finance Manager with Cattsoft Software Development.
“My next goal was to climb a peak over 7,000m. But in early 2018 I needed an operation on my ankle ligament. I also had a problem with my heart that year. It was not a good year for me.”
Then came COVID, and travel in China was restricted. So, Li started climbing smaller mountains near Guangzhou.This allowed him to work on his fitness during the pandemic, and entertain his colleagues with some stair-climbing escapades.
“I climbed the fire stairs within the building many times, half running, half walking, then taking the lift back down from the top,” he says.
“I ended up climbing more than 30,000 floors in three years. I think the people in the building thought I was crazy, but I ended up being much stronger than I was before the operation.”
Hallucinations on the hill
With altitude, barometric pressure lowers. This means molecules of oxygen in the air being breathed are further apart. Therefore, each breath contains less effective oxygen.
At sea level, each breath contains about 29% oxygen. At 7,500m, 46m below the peak of Muztagh Ata, each breath contains just 8.2% oxygen.
To acclimatise to the conditions, and avoid altitude sickness during the 16-day expedition, Li and his team of 20 climbers spent several days climbing from base camp at 4,400m altitude, to reach camp one at 5,500m, then climbing back down.
They then spent a few more days climbing up to camp two at 6,000m, staying at camp one and camp two for one night each, then heading back down again, allowing their bodies to adjust.
Even with the altitude acclimatisation, Li experienced unusual problems when he attempted the peak.
“Between camp three and the peak, I had some sort of hallucinations,” he says. “After we got back down to the base camp, the other climbers told me what I saw was not what actually happened.
“I think I arrived twice to the top. When I first arrived at the summit, I think I did not get photos, I just turned around and started going down. Then I spoke with some others and they told me I should go back up and get some photos. So, I did. But then at base camp, the climber told me we never spoke at the top!”
Li has plenty of photographic evidence to prove he made it – whether he reached the peak once or twice that day.
Using accounting knowledge to mitigate risk
While Muztagh Ata is not nearly as dangerous or technical as its neighbours K2 and Kangchenjuga – the second- and third-highest, and the deadliest, peaks in the world – it still offers its fair share of risks.
The major safety issue comes from the deep crevasses located throughout the icefall, between camp one and camp two.
“I think my accounting knowledge helped a little here,” Li says. “All accountants know about risk control. All businesses, and all climbers, must take risks. But we can take risks with a careful style. We can partly control those risks.”
“To do this on a mountain, we reduce our chances of feeling altitude sickness, and of that causing you to make bad decisions, by planning acclimatisation into our schedule.”
“The crevasses are also very dangerous, so we divide our team into smaller groups of six to eight people and we rope together. We move very slowly and the rope helps us protect each other as we climb.”
What’s next for the mountain adventurer? Li isn’t sure yet, but he knows that his climbing experience will make his entire existence more colourful.
“The experience taught me that the journey is not about the final result,” he says. “That’s not what we live for. We should live for every moment. Every moment is important. My hallucinations mean my memory of my time on the peak is blurry, but the journey was unforgettable.”
