Blogs from Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, China, Asia

An intense and most beautiful hiking. Departure from "Jane's Guesthouse" at 8:30, after breakfast. Main backpack being carried to the "Tibetan Guesthouse" (20 Yuan for the transportation). Hiked this trail with a Swiss couple, as my previous partners planned to stay next night(s) at the "Halfway Guesthouse". The "Tea Horse Guesthouse" was reached at, with a 20 minutes break. The "Halfway Guesthouse" was reached at 14:50, with a 20 minutes break. The "Tibetan Guesthouse" was reached at 17:20. Total distance walked: 34km in 9h including breaks. Exhausting ! A nice evening dinner was offered by the guesthouse staff, as they killed a 2OOkg pig that day, and (as they said) as we are approaching Chinese Newyear (even if that event will happen in three months from now...). !---! Tibetan Guesthouse, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, China, 100Yuan. ... read more

Our primary destination for this trip was Tiger Leaping Gorge. It's located 74 km North of Lijiang and 50 km South of Shangrila. We spend 2 night and 3 days hiking it. I believe overall we hiked about 25 km. We stayed at 2 hostels with Tina's hostel being our final destination. After leaving our bags at Tina's, we embarked on going to see the actual river which took us about an hour, going down on the steep curve, to get to. Overall, this was amazing experience and I'm really glad to be finally able to do it.... read more

1 mars Je quitte Lijiang aux petites heures. Le soleil vient à peine de se lever que je me retrouve déjà dans un bus en direction de Qiaotou, point de départ pour un court trek au Tiger Leaping Gorge. ... Il est 10h30AM lorsqu'on nous débarque à l'entrée d'une route de gravel qui monte tout doucement vers les montagnes. On est 5 foreigns: deux écossais, un philippin, une biélorusse et moi-même. Et sans surprise, un groupe d'étudiants chinois aussi. Ces derniers ne semblent pas avoir bien compris dans quoi ils s'embarquent exactement. Les fillettes chinoises sont en jeans et ballottent maladroitement dans leurs souliers plateformes. Elles rient en me voyant me pavaner en t-shirt. Bientôt, lorsque l'ascension va débuter, elles ne riront plus une seule fois. C'est que la journée de trek n'est pas facile. Des ... read more

When I was reading LP several months ago and thinking about this next leg of my travels in Yunnan, I already got the feeling that this part could very well be the highlight. And it indeed hasn't disappointed. Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest in the world, where the mighty Yangtze flows through a series of rapids, and named after a rather implausible story, was my next stop. Legend has it that a tiger once leapt from one of the rocks in the middle of the gorge to the other bank to escape a hunter. As beautifully romantic it is, having now seen the rock and the 40m or so of crashing rapids the tiger would have had to bound over, I can safely say it really is quite impossible. But before I got to ... read more

Tiger Leaping Gorge (Yunnan trekker's de facto "rite of passage" hike) For anyone coming to Yunnan to hike, this route is No.1. The Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest river gorges in the world. It's 16 km long and walled on either side by neighboring Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (18,360') to the south and Haba Snow Mountain (17,700') to the north. The area gets it's name from a local legend where a tiger once leaped across the Gorge's narrowest point to escape a predator. It must have been a Chinese T-Rex or something to get a big cat like that to leap 82 feet across a raging river! But seriously, the gorge itself is unbelievable. It looks as if an ax struck the mountains between two massive snowy peaks. Why on earth did the ... read more