from Kunming to the Gorge

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Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world, and the trek through it is spectacular and relatively grueling. There were nice little guesthouses along the way where Brett and I could talk with other travellers while looking out at the 5000+ meter mountains that tower over the gorge. We lucked out in that we got two beautiful sunny days of weather for our trek, and that the previous heavy rains caused huge landslides that closed most of the gorge's lower road off to marauding Chinese tour-bus travellers. The only bad luck was that we were hiking just before the gorge's massive number of wild growing marijuana plants come into bloom. Literally, there were wild pot plants twice my height all over the place, which I had never seen before anywhere. Brett and I hiked the epic upper trail in the gorge most of the time, but did a dramatic descent down to the famous(deservedly so) Yangtze river at one of the gorge's most narrow points. With the shear limestone faces across the river at the most imposing perspective, we boulder hopped next to the most violent rapids that either of us had ever seen. Not navigable in the slightest--- John Wesley Powell would agree. The waves crashed down through semi-truck sized rocks and the water would explode up and turn to mist as if there were depth charges planted in the river...

-fvn

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Photos

dali rooftops
too bad we didn't get much sun..

funeral procession
we crossed paths on a bike ride down the road- cultural revolution clad folks celebrate the passing of a loved one with music and firecrackers

parts is parts
cig ash is free

uhh... skin?
not so bad till we saw the ladies washing their veggies downstream..

shrouded peaks
16000+ foot misty peaks watched over us the entire trek through the gorge

yangzte rock hoppin'
too deep a gorge to adequately capture

photogenic gorge

photogenic gorge II

hitching out

Comments

[josh kanuch aka kanadu aka jd killa 360 degreez aka kazamir kuko]

the praise for miapolis
the land of sweat and sultains brett the nuge and fran-swa come give the blues to a blind man with the nooz a packet of skin and gorges thin the clouds of cous cous shrouds and parts of mao and karl and joe and the blokes of yangtze rivers flow the shows stoppin so come on and grow