Event

BIS warmly welcomes the return of explorer Jeff Fuchs, the first westerner to trek the ancient Tea Horse Road, and now, to share his traverse of the daunting eastern Himalayan Tsa’lam—the ancient Salt Road.

Largely forgotten, the Salt Road remains culturally, historically and geographically one of the least documented routes on earth. For centuries, nomads travelled to every corner of their windblown mountain kingdoms to search for precious salt. Passing along the fabled Kunlun mountains in southern Qinghai province, few people can recall having travelled the demanding and map-less “Route of White Gold.”

Named the Wild China Explorer of the Year (2011) for sustainable exploration of the Himalayan trade routes, Fuchs and trek partner Michael Kleinwort recently completed a month-long expedition at 4,000 meters along the nomadic salt route — becoming the first westerners to do so. Fuchs will detail this groundbreaking journey through his awe-inspiring tales and photography as well as his unique access to nomadic traders documenting their own recollections of travel along the Tsa’lam.

Jeff Fuchs is a professional mountaineer, author and photographer from Montreal, Canada. He first became fascinated by the discovery of the ancient Himalayan tea route, documented in his book The Ancient Tea Horse Road (Penguin-Viking Publishers, 2009). Having lived for most of the past decade in Asia, Fuchs' photos and stories have appeared in World Geographic, Kyoto Journal, The Spanish Expedition Society, Silkwinds, Outpost, The Toronto Star, and South China Morning Post, among many others.