If you have read our piece on climbing Dafeng as a first 5,000er, the obvious question is what comes next. In Sichuan the answer is unusually tidy: a private-only staircase of five mountains, each a real step up from the last, all run from Chengdu, all guided the same way. Walk the rungs in order and a 6,000-metre summit is a progression, not a leap.
The five rungs, at a glance.
Mt. Erfeng, 5,276 metres, five days. Mt. Yamu, 5,374 metres, five days. Mt. Wukuchu, 5,518 metres, six days. Mt. Nama, 5,588 metres, six days. And then the jump: Mt. Reddomain, 6,112 metres, twelve days. Each page carries its own season window — the two sisters run from late May, the three mountains further west from early or mid June, all closing in late October.
Notice what the staircase trades. The first four rungs buy you roughly a thousand metres of extra air over Dafeng for one or two extra days each. The fifth buys six hundred more metres and doubles the trip — because at 6,000-plus, the days are not just about height, they are about giving your body a base camp life before the summit push.
First snow: Erfeng and Yamu.
Erfeng is the second sister of the Siguniang range, and it is the natural first pair of crampons. The climb is a pre-dawn start on a non-technical summit slope — snow underfoot, one exposed stretch, no rope work asked of you — reached after three camp nights from a trailhead road. Everything that made Dafeng easy stays easy: the road in, the ranger paperwork, the horse support to base camp.
Yamu adds two things at once: two hundred metres and a longer, more varied mountain. The approach is a road to 4,200 metres, the season window is the widest of the five (late May into late November), and the route mixes scrambling with snow. If your calendar is precious, Yamu is the rung that squeezes the most mountain into five days.
The 5,500 step: Wukuchu and Nama.
These two are where the staircase stops being a big trek with a summit day and becomes genuine mountaineering. Wukuchu, 5,518 metres, starts with an off-road ride to 4,300 metres and climbs ground we rate above Nama and the classic Yuzhu — glacier travel where the guide is not a formality but the point. Nama, 5,588 metres, is earned the harder way: 46 kilometres on foot to reach the mountain, a summit day in two movements — a steep scree march first, then snow at 30–40 degrees.
People often ask whether to do both. Honest answer: they overlap more than they differ. If you have already climbed a snow peak and want the walk-in wilderness, pick Nama. If you want the most technical ground available below 6,000 metres in our range, pick Wukuchu.
The jump: Reddomain at 6,112.
Reddomain is the big one — twelve days, a 60–70 degree final approach, and a summit day that starts from Camp 2 rather than a road. We list it as an advanced objective and we mean it: before we confirm a booking we will want to talk through your climbing record, because the mountain does not forgive a gap in the CV. The payoff is the finest summit view in the Gongga range, standing directly opposite Mt. Minya Konka itself.
Beyond Reddomain, two further 6,000ers complete our ladder for experienced climbers: Mt. Jinyin, 6,410 metres, a ten-day expedition with a technical summit day through crevasses and ice towers, and Mt. Zhongshan, 6,886 metres, a two-week commitment close to 7,000. Both also start with a conversation about your altitude history.
Picking your rung.
A simple rule that has held up: one season, one or two rungs. Do Erfeng or Yamu this autumn; add Wukuchu or Nama the next; plan Reddomain for the season after, when you know how your body handles a 4,900-metre camp night. The private format helps here — every mountain runs to your dates, so the ladder bends around your calendar rather than the reverse.
And if none of the fixed rungs appeal because your first 5,000er is still ahead of you: start there. The staircase is not going anywhere.
Climb a rung this season?
The Erfeng expedition, 5 days
The Yamu expedition, 5 days
The Wukuchu expedition, 6 days
The Nama expedition, 6 days
The Reddomain expedition, 12 days