Peking University, looking west
Here’s Da, currently a postdoc at University of Maryland, living in College Park, MD.
Unfortunately, I’ve spent most of my life in flat places. I grew up in Shanghai and moved to Beijing for college in 2015. Seven hundred years ago, Beijing was chosen as the capital mostly for its unique geography. Its location surrounded by mountains on three sides made it an ideal defense for the central plains south of it. On clear days, the mountain ranges you can see from a higher place on campus are a real luxury. I only realized it too late when I moved to Chicago in 2019.
Chicago is also flat, but I always joke that the best part of the city is its airport. It flies to anywhere in the US with at most one stop. I turned those boring pandemic days into many, many mini-getaways. This is also the time I gathered my arsenal of gear and climbing experience.
What do I do now? I realized I probably won’t be a 5.12 climber in any foreseeable future. Perhaps one day, I will be able to embark on the suffering of traversing the entire rim-to-rim-to-rim of the Grand Canyon. But my interests mostly lie in the mellower part of it: shorter but more technical (fun) climbs that can be done in a day, easy multipitch climbs with great views, or some ski tours always on my list. You will see them on my trip logs.