At long last the Kawa Karpo Expedition that Bill Roberts, Roberto Gibbons Gomez, myself and a titanic guide named Daba undertook and completed is out in tangible print in Canada’s award-winning adventure travel Outpost Magazine. It marks the first documented Canadian team to ascend the sacred pass along the legendary Tea Horse Road…and in February no less.
Our team (Dorje at left, Daba with mule, and Bill coming up on right) arrive to within site of Shola Pass and its icy slope
Bill’s words and wit, images of my own, and Roberto’s incorrigible energy run through a stunning 20 page feature in Outpost Magazine’s edition #89. Huge credit to the team at Outpost who makes our journeys that much more endearing. Huge thanks to our primary sponsor Revo Sunglasses. A thanks too to Mountain Hardwear, Zoomer Media, and GT Snowshoes for their sponsorship. A thank you too to Wild China Travel who backs up my buttocks on my journeys high and low.
Our understated but heroic Dashi with his breakfast hair
A link here to download and subscribe to Outpost online. Best enjoyed with a tea.
Editing our equipment at close to 4.5 kilometres in the sky to ensure that only essentials will be carried to the pass. The sun is dropping and with it the temperatures. Time in the mountains is something absolute.
About JeffFuchs
Bio
Having lived for most of the past decade in Asia, Fuchs’ work has centered on indigenous mountain cultures, oral histories with an obsessive interest in tea. His photos and stories have appeared on three continents in award-winning publications Kyoto Journal, TRVL, and Outpost Magazine, as well as The Spanish Expedition Society, The Earth, Silkroad Foundation, The China Post Newspaper, The Toronto Star, The South China Morning Post and Traveler amongst others. Various pieces of his work are part of private collections in Europe, North America and Asia and he serves as the Asian Editor at Large for Canada’s award-winning Outpost magazine.
Fuchs is the Wild China Explorer of the Year for 2011 for sustainable exploration of the Himalayan Trade Routes. He recently completed a month long expedition a previously undocumented ancient nomadic salt route at 4,000 metres becoming the first westerner to travel the Tsa’lam ‘salt road’ through Qinghai.
Fuchs has written on indigenous perspectives for UNESCO, and has having consulted for National Geographic. Fuchs is a member of the fabled Explorers Club, which supports sustainable exploration and research.
Jeff has worked with schools and universities, giving talks on both the importance of oral traditions, tea and mountain cultures. He has spoken to the prestigious Spanish Geographic Society in Madrid on culture and trade through the Himalayas and his sold out talk at the Museum of Nature in Canada focused on the enduring importance of oral narratives and the Himalayan trade routes.
His recently released book ‘The Ancient Tea Horse Road’ (Penguin-Viking Publishers) details his 8-month groundbreaking journey traveling and chronicling one of the world’s great trade routes, The Tea Horse Road. Fuchs is the first westerner to have completed the entire route stretching almost six thousand kilometers through the Himalayas a dozen cultures.
He makes his home in ‘Shangrila’, northwestern Yunnan upon the eastern extension of the Himalayan range where tea and mountains abound; and where he leads expeditions the award winning ‘Tea Horse Road Journey’ with Wild China along portions of the Ancient Tea Horse Road.
To keep fueled up for life Fuchs co-founded JalamTeas which keeps him deep in the green while high in the hills.
