Montag, 27. Mai 2013
Tiger Leaping Gorge 虎跳峡
highpeak, 06:14h
The next morning leaving the hotel at 7 am for the bus to Qiaotou, which is the starting point for the 2 day hike of the upper way through the Tiger Leaping Gorge.
The bus ride was 2.5 hours so we (Maggie, Francesco, Markus and me) arrived around 10 am and started the hike. Weather was cloudy and misty again, but at least not too hot. The Jiang river runs through this gorge, on one side you have the trail which starts in 1800 m above sea level on one side of the gorge. In the beginning it winds up slowly and not too steep, a nice mountain walk. On the other side of the river the snowy mountains rise up to more than 5000 m, a breathtaking view (this time we could not see too much due to clouds, but I made the tour already once in 2006). After 2 hours we made a small lunch break in one of the little guest houses along the trail,
to get prepared for the more steep way up the so called 28 bends to the highest point of the trail in 2600 m altitude.
Doesnt sound too high, but the 28 bends a rocky, steep and sweaty. We made it
and afterwards the path is slowly going down and around 3 pm we arrived at another guest house and as it seemed cosy and rain clouds were getting more dark we decided to stay here. Rooms were ok, Francesco negotiated the beer price down from 10 RMB to 8 per bottle and eventually we meet some other travelers from USA, Canada and Israel and together we had a good evening at this mountain place.
The next morning we found the weather like the day before, but at least no rain. From here we continued hiking down for another 2.5 hours,
until we reached the road which leads back to Qiaotou at so called Tina's guesthouse. From here you can descend to the bottom of the gorge and reach the river, so after a short break we decided to do so. Honestly, for me and Markus not such a good idea: The trail goes down extremely steep, partly climb down (and later up) some ladders,
in total about 400 m down on a very rocky trail. We reached the bottom of the gorge, the wild water was amazing and the sound, whooa!
The way down already brought us to the limit of our physical fitness, but we still needed to go back up, as our bus back to Lijiang was scheduled for 15.30.
Gasping for air we climbed up, tempted to use a horse for the last third part back to the street, but finally we both have been to proud (main reason was I think, that this lady of the horse said we have to pay extra with a clear look on our bellies...) and walked all the way up back to Tina's guesthouse. Arrived there extremely exhausted, just waiting for the bus back to Lijiang.
In the evening we had a real nice dinner with Francesco:
He had convinced the owner of the hostel where he stayed to leave his kitchen to him
and he prepared 2 very nice pasta dishes for us: Penne with a mango/bell pepper sauce and another one with tomato, chilli and mint leaves, fantastico Francesco, thanks a lot for this nice dinner!
The bus ride was 2.5 hours so we (Maggie, Francesco, Markus and me) arrived around 10 am and started the hike. Weather was cloudy and misty again, but at least not too hot. The Jiang river runs through this gorge, on one side you have the trail which starts in 1800 m above sea level on one side of the gorge. In the beginning it winds up slowly and not too steep, a nice mountain walk. On the other side of the river the snowy mountains rise up to more than 5000 m, a breathtaking view (this time we could not see too much due to clouds, but I made the tour already once in 2006). After 2 hours we made a small lunch break in one of the little guest houses along the trail,
to get prepared for the more steep way up the so called 28 bends to the highest point of the trail in 2600 m altitude.
Doesnt sound too high, but the 28 bends a rocky, steep and sweaty. We made it
and afterwards the path is slowly going down and around 3 pm we arrived at another guest house and as it seemed cosy and rain clouds were getting more dark we decided to stay here. Rooms were ok, Francesco negotiated the beer price down from 10 RMB to 8 per bottle and eventually we meet some other travelers from USA, Canada and Israel and together we had a good evening at this mountain place.
The next morning we found the weather like the day before, but at least no rain. From here we continued hiking down for another 2.5 hours,
until we reached the road which leads back to Qiaotou at so called Tina's guesthouse. From here you can descend to the bottom of the gorge and reach the river, so after a short break we decided to do so. Honestly, for me and Markus not such a good idea: The trail goes down extremely steep, partly climb down (and later up) some ladders,
in total about 400 m down on a very rocky trail. We reached the bottom of the gorge, the wild water was amazing and the sound, whooa!
The way down already brought us to the limit of our physical fitness, but we still needed to go back up, as our bus back to Lijiang was scheduled for 15.30.
Gasping for air we climbed up, tempted to use a horse for the last third part back to the street, but finally we both have been to proud (main reason was I think, that this lady of the horse said we have to pay extra with a clear look on our bellies...) and walked all the way up back to Tina's guesthouse. Arrived there extremely exhausted, just waiting for the bus back to Lijiang.
In the evening we had a real nice dinner with Francesco:
He had convinced the owner of the hostel where he stayed to leave his kitchen to him
and he prepared 2 very nice pasta dishes for us: Penne with a mango/bell pepper sauce and another one with tomato, chilli and mint leaves, fantastico Francesco, thanks a lot for this nice dinner!
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cencenyan,
Montag, 27. Mai 2013, 6:55 PM
Breath taking view!
Thanks for the wonderful trip da xia yu! The nature was just amazing! And Tks for not showing the mule! Hehehe
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