Over the halfway hump

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I'm not actually in lijiang, but there's no option for the town where I am, shaxi, or even the nearest city; lijiang was where I was last, where I only spent less than 24 hours because I couldn't get past the touristy-ness of it all. I was also trying to get here for the Friday market-this is the last surviving weekly market on the tea and horse trail and hundreds of local minorities walk for hours to get here-but I came too late in the day. Now I'm trying to figure out whether to stay another night or head to Dali. I'm left with a sort of awkward amount of time, not really enough to go to another destination, but more than enough for what I've left to see. I guess I can always spend more time in Beijing, but I also have to look at flights to my next destinations, and that involves making commitments, which I haven't been good at thus far in my trip.

Before lijiang I was in the tiger leaping gorge, which was pretty spectacular and a very challenging hike ( made more so because we had stuff for overnight). You can do the hike in two days easily, but I went to the starting off point the night before in hopes of meeting someone to start early with the next morning. I don't know if it was because it was raining or because the gorge was officially closed ( they are building a road through it, which doesn't really affect the hike) but there were very few people. But it was raining, anyway, so I didn't really mind waiting until other people showed up around 10:30, right when the rain was letting up. I ended up hiking with two other Americans and, for the first part, two Israelis.

The first day was by far the most difficult. There's a steady climb up to reach the ridge, a short level part ( where the Israelis kindly made us coffee) and then a steep, switchbacking uphill known as the 24 bends. We were lucky that it was cloudy, as I would not want to do that during the heat and full sunlight of midday. The top of the bends is the highest point of the hike, I think, and everything after is relatively easy going, though there are some steep downhills. We pushed ourselves to the next guesthouse, where we had "lunch" and 4pm. ( I had to lie down for a minute before I could eat, but I also was getting a bad headache ).

We decided to go the two extra hours to the Halfway House, though based on energy exerted, it's much more than halfway through the hike. What it has going for it are spectacular views, including the best view I've ever seen from a bathroom. (the ridge the you hike along faces not only the gorge but also jade dragon snow mountain).

We had kind of a late night playing cards, so the next day we did the (relatively easy) 2 hour hike down to sean's guesthouse, the institution of the gorge, and decided to relax for the afternoon and do the last section of the gorge, going down to the tiger leaping stone, the next day. Surprisingly, there were only my two hiking partners and one other person there, I guess a lot of people get to the road and just go straight back.

The last day's hiking was probably just as difficult as the first-at one point we were climbing straight up the gorge on stairs and ladders, but we luckily didn't have our packs, and it was only about an hour each way. After one last lunch in the gorge, we got a car and headed back to the start to pick up our things. I took it pretty easy yesterday, but I'm not all that sore now, so I think I'm going to head up another ( much smaller) mountain to look at some ancient carvings.

Exactly three weeks left of my trip today.

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Comments

[Debbie]

Wow!!!
I had no idea you had become such a hiker! I'm so impressed! And very glad you are finding nice folks to hike/travel with from place to place. xox