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| Fansipan Sapa Vietnam, WW | |
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| | Fansipan Sapa Vietnam, WW | | | |
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Fansipan Sapa Vietnam, WW
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| Hiking | 17.40 Miles |
6,728 AEG |
| | Hiking | 17.40 Miles | 12 Hrs 36 Mns | | 1.75 mph |
| 6,728 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 40 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Fansipan, or “Fancy Pants” as I call it, is the tallest peak in Indochina at 3,143 meters. At only 10,312 ft, it is not that tall at all. And the hike is 17.4 miles return trip, which isn’t long. But the mountain is mysterious and the terrains are rutted, wet, muddy, rugged, and beautiful. Supposedly you can see China from the summit. Good portions of the hike from Camp 1 to summit are Class 3 ups and downs, with quite some gains and losses.
The mountain is notorious for bad weather – rainy, wet, muddy, foggy, with very poor visibility on the summit. Of the triplogs I’d read and videos I’d seen, 8 out of 10 had bad weather. Sapa is such a strange place. Heavy fogs hide the outlines of the mountains even when it’s sunny. We were going to hike it on 1/5, but changed it to 1/6 after seeing the forecast, which was notoriously unreliable, when we were in Hanoi. We ended up having the only day in the week with perfect weather – sunny, calm, with great visibility! The groups we met that summited days before or after couldn’t see much at all on the summit. Very Cool hike!
The Vietnamese decided to build cable cars so tourists wearing 6-inch heels could summit. I was thankful that they were not able to make the 09/2015 original opening date and so far the cable cars were only being used to haul construction materials up. Although they had already built a huge viewing platform on the summit and a big temple was under construction just below the summit. It used to have nothing but huge rocks on the top. Sad. The locals require you to have a guide and most hotels only offer 2 or 3-day guided hikes to summit. They either take you to Camp 2 the first day and summit the next day then come all the way down, or take you back to down to Camp 1 from the summit the second day, then take you to some nearby villages the 3rd day, depending on what you want. I think most people regret doing it as a 2 or 3 day hike. We hired a guide as required and decided to do it as a day hike, which turned out to be a great decision after hearing about some of the experiences of the people we met at Camp 1. Very proud of Alli as I saw her getting used to using hiking poles and more comfortable with the terrains. |
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