When Sue mentioned an interest in walking through Tiger Leaping Gorge, my heart responded with an immediate and loud YES!! Now this was not due to having heard of it before, or a result of extensive research - it was simply due to the name! Who could not just love it!
But our internet research about walking the trail was conflicting. Some reports suggested that it could be dangerous and difficult and others said it was a breeze. Topographic maps of China do not seem to exist - we couldn't find them online - so it was very confusing to figure out the best strategy. We certainly didn't want to put ourselves at risk. Sue had done the greater part of the planning legwork, so we set off from Shangri-La quite unsure about what we would be facing.
Well, we ended up facing a HUUUGE rock face. Wikipedia describes it as follows - 'At a maximum depth of approximately 3,790 meters (12,434 feet) from river to mountain peak, Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest and most spectacular river canyons in the world.' Now, make sure that registers, people - it is 12.5 thousand feet from the river to the top of the mountains! It was so vast, that a camera was insufficient to capture it! The actual cliff face that we saw was more like 6,600 ft - the mountains loomed even higher above the top of the sheer rock face! The river that runs through is called the Jinsha and is a major tributary to the Yangtze River. The area is also part of the 'Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas' , a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We stayed at Sean's Guest House at the south end of the gorge.
It was basically OK, but there are other newer ones that we thought would be worth a try on any subsequent trips. Upon arrival, Monday afternoon, we set out toward the river, going down through the village of Walnut Grove. In spite of light rain and wind, it was a really invigorating and wonderful walk.
It was basically OK, but there are other newer ones that we thought would be worth a try on any subsequent trips. Upon arrival, Monday afternoon, we set out toward the river, going down through the village of Walnut Grove. In spite of light rain and wind, it was a really invigorating and wonderful walk.
It was actually a festival day called the Quingming Festival - a celebration that was instituted in 732 AD to try to moderate the extravagant ancestor worship being practiced by the wealthy at that time. Today, people sweep the graves, bring willow branches to ward off the evil spirits and make other offerings.
We observed a great deal of these activities on both of our days in Tiger Leaping Gorge.
We observed a great deal of these activities on both of our days in Tiger Leaping Gorge.
We also admired the load this farmer was carrying!
And as for the view................!
After much dialogue and attempts (unsuccessfully) to haggle with Shawn's New York taxi rates, we decided to save our knees and lungs and take a car to a guest house called Tea Horse the next day.
The road we went up was similar to this! I was too gripped by the experience to take photos!
This gave us access to the trail along the gorge, which we followed for the greater part of the day on Tuesday.
It was a bit odd to be trekking along a trail in such an enormous geographic feature, but at the same time actually hiking through people's back yards and following electric power lines. While I'm freaking out at the huge drop, some local electrician has set up electric poles and wired them to provide power to the villages, not to mention all the pipes that supplied lovely fresh mountain water.
It put my height sensitivities to shame!
Lunch at 'Half-Way House' was not only great food, but was a stunning view.
The mountain behind us is part of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Our next destination, Lijiang, is just on the other side of it, but it took three hours of travel to get around to it!
Half Way House is a guest house where many trekkers stay if they are doing the two-day journey to hike the gorge.
Our walking conditions were good - some wind, but no rain other than extremely light and brief sprinkles. Mostly the trail was wide and easy - the hardest part was some of the slippery shale near the waterfall ..........
......and the descent down to the guest house at the end of the trail, called Tina's, which was hard on the knees and somewhat slippery. Here we could see why it is recommended not to walk it in the rainy season! However, our nice cup of tea at Tina's helped us quickly recover!
I was delighted to see many wild goats.......
.......and kept trying to get the ultimate 'shot'!
Sue enjoyed coming upon a family shrine of some type.
How pleasing it was to have walked this marvelous place - even though we did only half the trail, we believe we saw the best of it and had happy bodies to boot!
I thought it was, indeed, a wanderer's home!
What about that tiger, you may ask? There is a section of the gorge which is only 25 meters across. This is where the tiger was supposed to have leaped across. It is a very touristy spot - the bus loads come and money is extracted from pockets at several levels of descent to the river.
Sue and I preferred to locate our own idea of where the tiger jumped, which we found much more satisfactory! Although the head it not very 'tigerish', we thought this rock shape looked as if it was about to pounce over the river!
What about that tiger, you may ask? There is a section of the gorge which is only 25 meters across. This is where the tiger was supposed to have leaped across. It is a very touristy spot - the bus loads come and money is extracted from pockets at several levels of descent to the river.
Sue and I preferred to locate our own idea of where the tiger jumped, which we found much more satisfactory! Although the head it not very 'tigerish', we thought this rock shape looked as if it was about to pounce over the river!
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