Michael Dobie moved to Liming in September 2010 with two friends who discovered the Chinese village in a travel brochure. Crisscrossed by dirt roads, the rustic setting in the mountains of Yunnan province offered few amenities.
“It was pretty wild,” Dobie said. “People were walking miles into town for supplies. It was kind of just one street, that type of traditional village.”
But the group came with a purpose — to establish traditional, or “trad,” climbing in China — and for this, Liming offered two advantages. First, its endowment of soaring sandstone cliffs was rich with cracks and crevices ideal for the sport.