Ballet on Fangshan Peak
Fangshan Scenic Area's summit is flat and expansive like a vast wilderness, forming a thousand-mu high-altitude mountain platform. From a distance, it looks like a celestial jade palace, often referred to as an 'aerial garden'. Its grandeur is quite spectacular. Although the summit appears flat and wide when viewed from afar, it is actually uneven in reality, and one can easily trip while walking. Yet, it is just on this uneven mountain top that some people are performing 'aerial ballet'.
On March 15th, our city's Blue Sky Rescue Team and over ten outdoor enthusiasts from Jiayi County brought professional ropes, abrasion-resistant gloves, safety helmets, sit-harnesses, ascenders, and other professional safety equipment to a former stone mining cave wall at a place called Early Rock Pit in Daxing Town to practice rock descent.
Rock descent is a sport in which players utilize professional ropes and other safety equipment to descend from a cliff face or ascend from the ground to the cliff top using single rope technique.
Ropes are the primary safety equipment, with one person carrying a 100-meter rope while ascending.
In recent years, some urban office workers have organized various outdoor sports on weekends to relieve work and life stress. Among them, rock descent and climbing, which are derived from mountaineering, are called 'aerial ballet' and 'artistic gymnastics on cliffs' due to their technical difficulty and challenge. They are loved and pursued by a segment of people. Blue Sky Rescue Teams and other rescue organizations conduct training in climbing and rock descent to enhance team physical fitness and the need for special situation rescue.
Professional equipment for players.
On that day, these over ten rock descent enthusiasts went through dense bamboo groves, hiked for half an hour from the Daxing Stone Chicken Maiden Water Reservoir to the summit of Fangshan's opposite side, and practiced rock descent on cliff walls and caves. They hung in mid-air, posing various shapes, resembling 'ballet' on Fangshan's summit, forming a series of breathtaking scenes. The reporter followed them to take photos while climbing up and practicing rock descent, for the readers to enjoy.
Warm tips: Rock descent has a high technical content and danger level, requires professional equipment and team cooperation. Do not imitate without training.
