A month a go a few friends and I went to Gangshika and ski'ed off the peak (4950m) on the left in the picture. The main summit is the one on the right (5254m). We didn't try to climb it because of novice team members and avalanche concerns.

Gangshika can be climbed in a weekend from major cities in China due to closeness to Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Isn't this the peak Sun Ping had his epic on years ago?

So skiing this, you'd want your fat rock skis?

BobK wrote:Isn't this the peak Sun Ping had his epic on years ago?

No. Sun's epic peak was Animaqin (it has a proper English name but I can't remember) to the South, more inaccessible than Gangshika.

It takes about 2 hours driving to the north from Xining to get to Gangshika, which is the highest peak of the eastern Qilian Range. Anymaqin is more than a day's travel to the south from Xining.

John Duffield wrote:So skiing this, you'd want your fat rock skis?

Yes. Fat skis bring more fun, except when they are sitting on your back. The snow on Gangshika when we were there was soft but never was more than a foot deep on top of a hard layer. Some of the places was hard wind slabs. I probed the snow regularly to assess condition. There was a deep weak layer 20-40cm below a harder surface. Fortunately the hard pack was always strong enough so none of us broke through. It was fun skiing all the way, even with normal skis. The snow was far better than on the "7-1" Glacier in May 2008, when we had deep soft snow with a 10cm hard crust on top. With my narrow (68mm waist -- it was light, though) it was hard to link turns. This time I brought a pair with 85mm waist and they were much better.

I don't think very wide skis are good things to bring to these mountains because when there is deep power it's usually because a lot of new snow has just fallen, a time when avalanche risk is too worrying. In such remote places you always end up staying away from the steep and deep. That is not to say there are no fun places for a pair of rockered skis. Some serac cliffs with good run out looked fun to jump off.