Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge is a 2000m deep canyon on the Yangtze River, where it passes between the 6,000m Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and 5400m Haba Xueshan, in northern Yunnan. Though the canyon itself is only about 17km long, the walk from Qiaotou at one end to Daju at the other is about 25 km, with some decent elevation along the way. It made for a long and tiring, but very beautiful, day. I started out at 7am alone, and after lunch joined with some folks I met at the guesthouse the night before. It was very gray, so the light for photos wasn't great, but though it hasn't come across so well, the scenery was spectacular. I journeyed by the high trail, which meant that the river was far below me until the very end. I had planned to stay and do another day and a half of hiking in the area, but I got very ill from the dinner we ate at the end of this day (as did one of my companions who ordered the same dish), and so I spent the next two days recuperating instead of hiking. I was very glad to have made it through the gorge first.

Drying corn.

The trail.

The waterfall coursed over the trail here, so we had to make our way over the slippery wet stones very carefully...Celebrating a long day, with a Korean man, Chinese woman, and two French Canadians.'Sean's Guesthouse'. Run by a Tibetan man and his daughters. The view from the patio is of a 1000m cliff face on the mountain across the gorge (as was the view from my room). Very rustic and charming. Hikers of several nationalities passed through, and also a film crew from the Travel Channel.