It took a lot of time and effort to get here: Lijiang, a remote town in the Northwest of the province Yunnan, close to the Tibetan border, tucked between steep mountains. It could have been straightforward: we already had tickets for the direct bus from Chengdu to Lijiang, when a landslide blocked the road, the bus was cancelled and we were left looking for alternatives. We opted to take a detour through Chongqing (which turned out to be totally worth it, see separate post). Several days and long trainrides later, we finally made it to Lijiang.
Why we wanted to come here? Because it’s the starting point of – as rumour in the traveller community has it – one of the best hiking treks in China. And the Tiger Leaping Gorge did not disappoint. It’s one of the deepest gorges in the world (from the river to the highest peaks it’s almost 4000m!), and takes its name from a legend according to which a tiger escaped a hunter by leaping over the gorge. Never mind the legends, the scenery during the two-day hike was stunning. We hiked high up along one side of the mountains that line the gorge, with the river deep below us and the 5000m high mountains towering above us. It was hard to keep the eyes on the (at times quite dangerous) path, so beautiful were the surroundings. We came through little mountain villages, crossed waterfalls, bamboo forests and marvelled at wild orchids on the way. After a 15km hike on the first day, we spent the night at the ‚Halfway Lodge‘. The view from our room has to be seen to be believed. Delicious food and great company (a French couple, Amelie & Pierre, who we met on the bus to the gorge and who kept us company for the whole trek) made the day just perfect.
After breakfast the next morning on the terrace under blue sky (did I mention the amazing view?) we set off for the second part of the hike, which ended with a spectacular descent to the bottom of the gorge. It featured a climb down a ladder of about 20m on a vertical cliff – of all the hikes I did in my life, this so called ’skyladder‘ was one of the scariest but most spectacular passages (which certainly would not have passed a UK Health & Safety assessment). Finally we were level with the boiling white waters of the river. Having seen our share of waterfalls and canyons, the Tiger Leaping Gorge really left us in awe.
So, despite the hassles of getting to this remote place and the traffic jams on the way to the gorge which almost had us despair: it was all worth it.
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