Tiger Leaping Gorge

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Two hours from Lijiang or Shangri-La (aka Zhongdian), get off in Quiatou. Try to get there early enough to start the high trail and get to Naxi Family Guesthouse, about two hours uphill from Quiatou, before dark. The first part of the walk from Quiatou is by road, then by cement path, and then by a double-track trail. It's possible to leave most of your gear at a guesthouse and pick it up after the trek. From Naxi Guesthouse, which is a pretty nice place (despite the flies and lack of electricity most of the time), continue along the high trail (steep uphill for another hour) to stay at the guest houses along the way, which are spaced every three hours of walking. The only place that is sometimes unpassable is the large waterfall in between the Halfway Guest House and Walnut Garden; after significant rainfall, it's too dangerous to cross.

Because of an error in Lonely Planet, which at one point mistakenly calls Naxi Family "Walnut Grove," we took a taxi from Quiatou almost all the way through the gorge. We didn't understand what had happened until it was too late, so our exploration of the gorge wasn't logical or typical.

The high trail is a path; the low road is a two-lane, paved road. Both are on the same side of the canyon. If you ask for a map at the ticket office, officials will provide ones drawn by one of the guesthouses. They aren't bad, but they aren't even remotely drawn to scale.

DAY 1

As of July 3, 2012, the low road is impassable due to a rock slide (see photos; somehow no one was hurt). We got ripped off (I think) by the taxi driver in Quiatou, who failed to mention this detail. He drove us through the gorge and past the touristy areas, through the tunnel, and to the rock slide, which we then had to pass by foot. He told us that Walnut Grove was a ten minute walk from there, which was either a poor estimate or an outright lie. After carefully crossing the narrow path on the rock slide (it's pretty sketchy), an hour or so later we finally arrived at what is probably the most impressive part of the canyon: Walnut Garden (translated sometimes as Walnut Grove). The Yangtze is narrow here -- close to where the tiger supposedly jumped across (which can be accessed near Tina's Guest House, maybe 3 km away), and a sheer 2000 meter rock cliff rises precipitously on the opposite side of the canyon. It was impossible for my eyes to comprehend the scope of it, and I found it dizzying just to look at it.

Prices at Sean's Guesthouse were outrageous -- it's a nice place, and certainly the most well developed location to procure information and guides for the hikes, but they wanted 420 RMB for the three of us, which is absurd. Almost next door is Tibet Guesthouse, which was only 80 for the three of us, and only marginally inferior. The woman who runs the place is from Tibet proper and is helpful in every way. Just about everything she serves in her restaurant, including the chickens and pigs, is grown on her farm. She's an excellent cook and would often sit and talk with us while we ate.

DAY 2

Because of the landslide, very few cars, and no tour buses, could pass our end of the canyon, taking us back in time to before the road was built in 1996. Because of this, we decided to walk the low road toward Haba Mountain. While the road was safer than usual because of the absence of cars, the ridiculous design (building a road along a cliff without proper drainage, or fencing to catch boulders) makes it pretty unsafe due to falling rocks. In many places, just tossing a small rock at the cliff wall would probably cause other larger rocks to break off and fall. The evidence of this is all over the road; in some areas, only one lane is passable because of rocks that have fallen. The gorge technically ends about 3 km from Walnut Garden and opens up where a tributary runs into the river. There is a beautiful plateau town that looks worth exploring. We walked along the road for another 3 km and then followed a path on the left hand side that we thought might be the high trail. After another hour or so of uphill walking on this trail, I came across two men in a pine forest who were cooking potatoes in a fire. They informed us that we were actually on the Haba Mountain Trail, not the High Trail. It's possible to walk all the way to the Haba Mountain basecamp, and it seemed to be a beautiful hike. We had all planned on a shorter hike and forgot to bring any purifying tablets, so we decided to call it quits and walk back the same, long way we'd come.

That evening, we ventured off to walk to the shore of the Yangtze. The woman at our guesthouse said that it would take about 2 hours, but after about an hour, we lost the trail and couldn't go any further without potentially damaging some of the crops. It might be good to get a guide or specific directions before trying this.

DAY 3

The aforementioned waterfall, along with the sheer cliffs of one section of the high trail, led me to decide to split from Mike and Cindy, who both wanted to walk the whole high trail. We split at about 10 AM, planning to meet the following evening on the other end of the gorge. I didn't find out until evening of the next day, but the waterfall was, in fact, impassable, and after trying to find a detour, they had to give up and take the low road anyway.

I wanted to attempt the low road from the start, since there were hardly any cars on it, and I figured I could walk most of the high trail the next day to meet up with them. It was 20 km or so to Naxi Guesthouse, but only the last 3-4 km has tour buses that transport hordes of Chinese tourists down to the river to explore the elevated walkways. The rickshaws and tour groups turned me off to the idea of walking down the steps to the river, but I later heard from Mike and Cindy that it is a pretty intense experience, particularly if the water is high.

DAY 4

I left Naxi Guesthouse with just a daypack, intending to meet Mike and Cindy along the trail. The dreaded 28 bends weren't so bad, and once at the top, it's all downhill to the Tea Horse Guest House (which looked even nicer than Naxi, and has massage). There were a couple of bends in the trail with sheer drop-offs, but even with my dislike of heights, I was able to negotiate them after a few minutes of confidence building and rationalizing. I decided to run a few miles of the flatter portions, and found myself at the Tea Horse Guest House by lunch. I ate a delicious Naxi Sandwich and continued on with some hikers that I'd met the night before. This portion of the trail is relatively flat and easy (see main photo), but I started to worry about Cindy and Mike, as I should have already run into them. After another half hour of hiking, decided to stop at a high point, where I could see about an hour down the trail, to wait for them. At around 2 PM there was still no sign of them, so I decided to turn around and head back, knowing that we had actually agreed to meet at Naxi. I figured maybe something happened that they couldn't get through.

A half an hour after I returned, they showed up, wet and exhausted, and with a good story about losing their way the day before, due in part to the typo in Lonely Planet, which made them try to walk the opposite direction that everyone else does.

There are more photos below.

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Photos

View from the High Road
This is from the section between the Tea Horse Guest House and the Halfway Guest House.

Definition of Understatement
On July 3, this landslide destroyed about 50 meters of the low road. At least the people who ordered the sign predicted it.

Landslide
Apparently this has slipped even more recently. Walking across it is not fun.

End of Gorge
This is the far end of the gorge, near the Haba Mountain trail.

Yangtze
We tried to walk down to the river, but without a guide, it was difficult to follow a single path. We hiked through the farms for awhile but never made it to the river shore.

Near Naxi
This view is from the high trail near Naxi Guest House.