Wade Brackenbury

Wade Brackenbury tells his story about heading to China to climb, but instead meets a photographer, Pascal, who is looking for a mountaineer to help him get into to the Drung valley where he hopes he will be the first to photograph the Drung minority. Wade volunteers for the trip, says goodbye to his climbing partner and together with Pascal heads out of Yunnan. The trouble is that the Drung valley is in a section of Tibet next to Yunnan and just across the border from Burma, and in the early 1990s when they were trying to make this trip, Tibet was closed to foreigners.

Their first attempt is a failure--they are arrested 3 times, and then early monsoons make the trip into the valley impossible. Pascal and Wade return to China in 1993 with Sophie, a French woman of Chinese descent who is their translator. As they try to make progress on their new route from Sichuan into Tibet, Wade and Sophie sense from his various delays that Pascal is really afraid of the wilderness and doesn't want to get to the valley as much as he says he does. It is a great travel tale, and Brackenbury does a fine job telling it. I was frustrated that Brackenbury let Pascal dictate the trip--or maybe he was just gullible--even though he was fairly certain that Pascal would never make it to the Drung valley. To find out if they make it, you'll have to read the book.… (more)