Tiger Leaping Gorge

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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 Yangtze choose to flow between the two tallest spires in the region? Apparently the Yangtze has always followed this route. Gradually over the millennia, the Yulong and Haba snow mountains pushed skyward with the rest of the Himalayan range. (Indian plate tectonics)

The hike through the gorge is also known to be very dangerous during certain parts of the year. In the summer, heavy rains cause streams and waterfalls to swell triggering landslides which sometimes render long stretches of the gorge impassible. Currently, there are two ways to hike the gorge; the high-road hiking trail and the low-road highway route. Attempting to avoid the exhaust belching tour buses and a long, boring walk along tarmac, I chose the high road.

The bus from Baishuitai allowed me to get off at Tina's guesthouse. I stopped at Tina's for a bit to take off some layers and slap on some sunscreen before descending down to see the Tiger Leaping Rock, the narrowest part of the gorge where the T-Rex v. Tiger legend went down. The trail down was steep and jagged. Horse scat and dust littered the trail. At one point, the trail split - one path lead down more tight switchbacks and one path lead to the Sky Ladder. Wait, the Sky Ladder? Yeah, it's a all metal fire-escape ladder that takes you down 30 meters. It was super janky. People had written notes of encouragement on some of the ladder rungs saying, "You can do it!" and "U R BRAVE". One comedian wrote, "Smoke2Joints". Awesome.

In several places along the trail down to the Tiger Leaping Rock I saw the local women selling items like bottled water, Snickers bars, pineapple skewers, and small baggies of "Saffron" and "Cannabis". Saffron and cannabis, why only these two? At first, I figured the saffron was placed there to show customers that they were for sale as 'cooking spices'. "Nah, I don't think so", Ted the Kaiwen Village innkeeper later explained. "They're both for smoking. It's not actually saffron, but it looks similar."

When I hit reached the bottom, the thunder coming from the rushing water of the Middle Rapids was super LOUD. The air felt much cooler due to the spray and also the shade provided by the gorge's sheer walls. There was one large rock by the water's edge which could only be accessed by a rope bridge - 10 yuan to cross. Afterwards, I climbed around some other nearby rocks to find another nice vantage point. As I watched the rapids, I remembered hearing the story of 4 guys in the 1980's who attempted to raft down the Middle Rapids. Quite an undertaking!! They never did make it. Poor bastards. Back up the trail to Tina's I go to have lunch.

At roughly 3:00pm, I set out on the highroad to start hiking towards the Halfway Guesthouse. I got sidetracked by a goat path which led me too far up the hillside. But from above, it was easy to spot the heavily used, "correct" trail below. For the first 2 hours, I saw no other hikers. I passed by one herd of horses and a very ugly stray dog but saw nothing more. Bamboo forests, some large piles of rocks stacked by other hikers. The trail was indeed well marked. Larger rocks along the path were painted with yellow arrow's and words written in English spelling "TINA'S G.H." About 2 1/2 hours into the hike I caught up to a group of 3 young Chinese hikers in their 20's, 2 boys 1 girl, all from different provinces. They invited me to joined their caravan and together we continued the hike along the mountain's contour through deep valleys all the way to the Halfway Guesthouse.

The Halfway House was a great choice. The owner used be an herb collector (perhaps more than just Saffron/Cannabis?) but built a guesthouse in response to the growing number of gorge hikers. Halfway also proudly offers the "No.1 Toilets in the World". They're ordinary bathrooms but when you enter the stall, one wall has been knocked out to give the "user" a gorgeous view of the Yulong Snow Mountain seen directly across the gorge. They also had an amazing rooftop patio for people to relax and enjoy watching the sunset. The guesthouse was all hikers. Many of them were young Chinese travelers. It's cool to see young Chinese people interested outdoor activities like hiking. Many of them were overdone with their technical gear but ahh, whatever gets you in the mood.

The next day, the 3 Chinese hikers and I set out to finish the last 4 1/2 hours of our hike. For me, it was really nice to walk DOWN the famous "28 Bends" instead of UP. The last bit of the hike offers the best views of the gorge and in my opinion when you're hiking uphill, you naturally want to look down at the ground or at the heels of the person in front of you. Going downhill, you're looking out which give you a far better perspective of your surroundings. We reached the end of the trail in Qiaotou at 3:30pm. A van was pulling up to the trailhead drop off another fresh group of hikers. We asked the driver if she was going back to Lijiang. She agreed. Apparently everything goes back to Lijiang at the end of the day. We got a comfy ride back to town and the driver got to make an killing on her return trip! Schweet.

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Photos

No. 1 Toilets in the World
Amazing views for your No.1's and No.2's