Lijiang Surrounds & Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

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Today was a day that I had been concerned about. I wanted to do this, I needed to do this to test my health, but it could have had repercussions. Today the trip took us up Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. We were to reach an altitude of about 4680 metres. The air is thin, it was also going to be cold and I had forgotten to bring warm clothes, they were sitting on my bed, somehow overlooked in the packing. But the altitude was the concern. You see 6 years ago I had open heart surgery and a quintuple bypass. Generally I am fit enough but thin air, lower levels of oxygen and the exertion of the climb was causing me some doubts about whether I should do this. In my 20's I climbed Mt Kenya and achieved over 5000 metres. I felt sick I was nauseous all the time and did not really enjoy the achievement as much as I should have. I am now several decades older. A concern.

On the other hand as I am likely to visit Tibet and go to Everest Base Camp, I needed to test myself at these altitudes. Oxygen bottles were readily available and common sense says that I should have picked some up. Yeah - naa. I am the Bludger and still got some armour plating left. I went up that Mountain without an Oxygen supply and made it as high as possible. It may be a dodgy heart in my chest but it still has plenty of ticker left.

Our tour bus took us up the lower slopes of the Mountain and deposited us at the Cable Car Station. It was already busy and we queued up for close to an hour before getting our ride up. As we queued many people were already sucking on their Oxygen tanks. I am not sure if that was a precaution, a novelty or they felt a genuine need. I felt no effect at all.

The ride up the cable car was smooth and we passed spectacular cliffs shrouded in clouds and the signs of a walking trail that our guide said we couldn't use. I liked our new guide, she was informative, great at leaping in to take pictures but not in our face all the time. The cable car deposited us at about 5500 metres, the rest had to be done the hard way. Once again at this stage I felt no ill effect. Maybe the surgeons did a good job all those years ago. My tour companions spent a lot of time taking photos of them selves and one of their boys was feeling ill, so I drifted off and started my way up the steps to the summit.

Slow gentle steps with plenty of photos and rest stops. This way I made it up to a midway station. Contact was maintained with the rest of the group by text messages. Damn! technology is so good for this sort of stuff. We actually ended up at the mid station at similar times. Our tour guide informed us that we had a very good viewing day. The clouds (mist?) swept in and out, leaving wonderful vistas of a nearby glacier and back down the mountain to the valley below.

I felt fine, but noticed as I ascended that at times I would feel light headed. Stop take some deep breaths, get the oxygen levels back up. Hold on to a handrail. But I made it to the highest viewing platform. Here there is a monument with the height and I waited in line for my turn to be photographed in front of it. I got chatting to a rather attractive lady who was quite obviously traveling alone. We arranged to swap cameras and take pictures of each other when our turns came. When it was her turn, she slipped off her parka and a jacket underneath and stood in front of that monument in a silky dress more suitable for a night club than a mountain top. She was very attractive! Of course I have no photos because I was using her camera. Then for me, she failed to take a single picture! Fortunately the tour guide popped up like a rabbit out of a hat and took a couple of me. I was left with a memory only of the lady in a night club dress on top of the mountain.

So 61 years old, a dodgy heart, up and down that mountain in shorts and without oxygen. I am not going to go gently into the night.

Back down we went and the tour group consolidated again. Back to the cable car and then down to lower levels. I thought that we were done at this stage but we moved down to a river, small lake and waterfalls. The water falls looked a little bit artificial and gave time to stretch the legs, take some photos and for me grab a bite to eat. It was when I was getting food that I realised that there was a problem. Within the park, you cannot take private vehicles and large buses take people from location to location. The problem was that the tour group was now split up again, there were thousands of visitors and insufficient buses to move us all. It took a long time to consolidate the group and a long time to work through the queue to get on a bus back to our transport. As we waited I witnessed what is quite a common Chines queuing behaviour. A group of elderly ladies were behind me. They used elbows, knees, feet, bags and at one stage a small child to promote themselves through the queue. This is actually common practice in China, but even other members of the queue were getting pissed off at them and at one stage a policewoman had to intervene to stop an angry interchange.

We had a further stop on the way back at a "Monastery" that looked rather like a house to meet a Shaman. Here we did some traditional character drawing and learned about the local culture. As most of the learning was in Chinese I kind of zoned out. I was interested in a tradition of the local culture where it seemed that couples seemed to get a bit of spice before they were actually married. This involved the young male climbing the walls of the house and entering the bedroom via the window where his lady to be lived. The young lad needed to be gone before morning so that he did not get caught.

The owner of the house brought out his traditional winter coat, which was a very heavy animal skin coat and we posed in it for photos.

Day done. I had a quiet night drinking a few beers and eating some snacks.

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