Mingyong Glacier

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Hi All
It was an 8 hour journey from Daocheng to Shangri-la through a beautiful river gorge along roads which were generally good. After an overnight in Shangri-la we took a bus for another 4 hours to Deqin. To get to Mingyong we had to hire a car for 150 RMB. The journey to Mingyong was wonderful with the mountains in the background as we descended into the Mekong river gorge. Just so pretty.

The price structure had changed for the park and a ticket for the glacier cost 78 RMB.

Mingyong is a small farming village with a few hotels and a few restaurants and little else. Our driver was telling us that he remembers that it used to take his grandparents 2 weeks to walk to the nearest town and back.

Up early and onto the mountain. There are some little cars to take you up the first part if you wish, for 75 RMB but we elected to walk.

The walk up the mountain is first on paved road, for the little cars, and then it's stairs virtually all the way to the top.

Walking up was fairly easy until you get to around 3000 metres above sea level and then it starts to get harder. All in all it took us about 4 hours to walk from the main gate to the temple at the top.

The views over the glacier from the observation points are quite spectacular. The colours in the ice are amazing and to see it just going on and on up the mountain made me feel very insignificant and small.

This park was not busy at all when compared to Yading but I think this will soon change as there was a lot of work going on building visitor centres and amenities.

Once again we were very lucky with the weather as the clouds parted and the sun came out.

This is our last adventure in the mountains as we start to head south.

Enjoy the photos

JAH Bless

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