There is a place in China which never fails to take my breath away. As I turn the bend into the gorge that squeezes the Yangzi (Yangtse) tributary to its narrowest my heart leaps into my throat and I never fail to be moved (and almost deafened) by the roaring of the river as it rushes through the gorge and those immense peaks towering above me. There would seem to be no other feeling of smallness and "rightness" of scale as can be felt here. Everyone should feel this small. On the last day of (brother) John's you-can-sleep-when-you're-dead visit to Yunnan [see previous Kunming in 5 Days blog notes] we decided we were just too close to Tiger Leaping Gorge to miss seeing it. We also decided to splurge on a car and driver to give us a bit more agility and buy a little time. Having paid $8 a night for excellent and cosy accommodation in Lijiang we could now afford such lordly extravagance and at $70 for two cars, two drivers (that is, one vehicle from Lijiang to the Qiaotou park entrance and another local vehicle for the short drive in to Middle Gorge) and a journey total of 250 kilometres we considered those $70 supremely well spent. And it is indeed a beautiful drive. The Gorge This was to be a very brief visit so without enough time to overnight in the gorge we decided to drive right into the gorge to the point where my previous treks had finished. Here we were able to take a different tack and climb the vertiginous and quite complicated rocky track straight down to the river's edge known as Teacher Zhang's trail. In intensity and difficulty this feels like the upper mountain track of roughly 20 kilometres compressed into one and a half kilometres. Take another look at this photo (above). Find the tiny white dot on a winding road on the left hand side of the river just left of centre. That is a car. Now you have a scale to work to. The track drops away into an apparently dark chasm although in fact the entire climb was in blazing hot sunshine. The track descends possibly 300 metres in elevation, in parts almost vertically, and includes a latched together series of rough old iron ladders "nailed" to a 90º rock face and which to even hardened climbers and trekkers is a nerve-breaker. The Tiger on the rocks On the return climb this time using the so called "sky ladder" I could be seen quietly talking myself through each rung of the last ten to fifteen metres in rasping whispers and with the legs turning to jelly wobbles. I had to ensure always that neither the angry water and jagged rocks (the size of houses) far below me nor the soaring rock faces on all sides of me could be caught in my peripheral vision. My safe arrival at the top of the ladder depended completely on my skinny tremble-free arms and a steady state of mind. We both agree now that we do not need to ever climb that ladder again. This is not the "sky ladder" Neither is this the "sky ladder". All the tea in China (...) couldn't have made me release an arm to take a shot of that ladder. I don't need one. The image and sensation of climbing it remains seared in my memory to this day. A little more about the "sky ladder"
Or the horse option.... Back near the village of Qiaotou and a quick walnut tasting courtesy of a shy local woman.
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