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Published: August 2nd 2008
(Day 116 on the road)After my recovery, I left for the Tiger Leaping Gorge, still feeling a little week after having eaten very little for a week. However, my timing to trek the gorge turned out to be just perfect! During my stay in Lijiang I had seen many people leaving for the gorge only to return back to Lijiang as the trek was closed or even the road to it was shut so the buses had to turn around. As this is rainy season, it does really rain frequently, resulting in landslides on the road and the trek. Also, as we learnt, a foreigner had died just two days ago on the hike, resulting in the closure of the High Road, as it is called.
When I arrived at the starting point of the path, the trek was still closed, and people attempting to hike it had been turned away for a few days. I started walking around 1700h was able to walk past the entrance gate without problems - only a small argument there with the security guy whom I eventually just ignored and walked past. Dropping my big backpack at a guest house for storage I bumped
into Nico and his wife Coti, a very friendly couple from Chile whom I had met many months ago on my trip through the Gobi desert in Mongolia. It was very unexpected to see them here after all this time, and it was so nice! They were headed towards Pakistan and across the Karakorum Highway, which I had travelled a few years back, so I was able to give them some tips on that. Their blog detailing their eventual journey through Pakistan is
located here.
After a nice chat with Nico I started the hike, sneaking up the mountain path James-Bond-like to avoid being called back (as I had been told by other travellers who had been "caught" after starting the trek that the locals apparently phone the police and they then come and take you back). However, I managed to walk on without any problems; if I was just lucky or if it was too late in the day I wasn't sure but I didn't care either, I was just happy to be on the trek. My goal for the day was small place called Naxi Family Guesthouse about 2h up the mountain. On a side note for fellow
travellers: I caught some terrible bed-bugs there, about 50 bites in total all over my body still itching like hell even as I write these lines a few days later, so think twice before staying there!
Tiger Leaping Gorge is considered the world's deepest river canyon, with the river passing through some 5500m high mountains and under 2000m steep cliffs. As you can imagine, the scenery on the hike is great: The path runs high up in the mountains at an altitude of around 2500 meters, with a sheer drop all the way down to the Yangtze river in the narrow valley below. The trek through the gorge is typically very busy, with hundreds of people doing it every day. However, due to the closure I had it all virtually for myself, and thus spent the next three days in almost perfect solitude, just what I had wanted!
On day two I got caught in a strong thunder storm; I had kept hearing the thunder in the distance and hoped for a while to make it to a guest house on time, but it eventually hit me about thirty minutes before reaching it. It was great though: I donned my waterproofs and walked through the pouring rain, the Yangtze River far below me, the mountains rising high up next to me, the thunder, the lightning - it was a very powerful experience.
The highlight of the trek was towards the end, when I descended down to the water's edge over a pretty adventurous, steep path that involved handrails and a few ladders. Down at the bottom however I could feel the reckless power of the water that has created this deep canyon over the course of millions of years! On the way back up I walked past a little cave, about the size of my head. The mountain was on my left and the cliff was on my right. As I passed the cave I turned my head to look at it, and at the very same second that I turned my head a big bird shot out of the cave, directly at me. It was completely unexpected and scared me to death. I flinched and instinctively took a step back. The bird missed me by a few centimetres, and when the shock was over I realised that I was standing right next to the edge. If my step back had been just a little bigger I would have gone over the edge and down, some 500 meters I reckoned. Quite a frightening ending to this great trek...
Next stop: Shangri-La (Yunnan Province, China).
To view my photos, have a look at
pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete
book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).
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Dora
non-member comment
Powerful Experience
Hi, Ben, it's truly a powerful and frightening experience. Please take care when you travel alone. Regards