Tips for Chinese camping, hiking, and outdoor adventure
Just back from an action-packed high-adventure trip in China’s SW Yunnan province. The geographically isolated province is known for its varied minority cultures and stunning mountain scenery. We went there with the intention of experiencing both. The entire country has the first week of October off every year. The holiday doesn’t really have any historical significance other than being a semiannual opportunity for 1.3 billion people to simultaneously take to the road, rail, and skies. Against others’ cautioning, we hit the tourist route for Yunnan. I figured, with enough miles under boot, we could escape the burgeoning crowd that would advance on Dali and Lijiang city – the quaint old towns that are often the destination of many vacationing Chinese tourists.
We stocked up on Chinese camping gear prior to our departure intending to save a few yuan on hotels and spend a few days in the “wilderness”. Unfortunately in China, you’re never too far from civilization. Regardless, we managed a rather unforgettable trip – see photos here (sorry if you’re trying to access these photos from China – Flickr is STILL blocked but you can download a plugin for Firefox that gets around that). Based on the stories below, we offer up several tips for those that are considering similar backpacking, hiking, or otherwise outdoor adventure trips in China.
Graveyard Shift
We spent our first two days in Yunnan in the Bai minority town of Dali – a pleasant old walled city on the banks of one of China’s largest lakes, Erhai (so named because it supposedly resembles an “ear”). We visited Chongsheng temple, took a trip out to the Bai village of Xizhou, and then found ourselves with an extra day on our hands. We had planned to only spend one day in Dali but the mass migration of tourists to the city caused a sudden shortage in transportation to Lijiang. Faced with the opportunity for a little more exploring, we bought a pair of chairlift tickets up the nearby Cangshan mountain range.
We packed some warm clothes knowing the mountain would be a bit chillier than the Erhai valley below. It was about 3:00pm. We figured we may as well spend a few hours hiking around on the mountain’s well-marked trails till the chairlift closed at 6:30. To our surprise, when we arrived at the top, the lift operators informed us that the lift would close that day at 5:30. We had a little over two hours to cover whatever we could along the 8 km trail that ran between the lift and another cable car on the other side of the mountain. We set off for the 9 Dragon Lady Pools – i.e. a waterfall.
Along the way, we gave up the idea of ever making it back to take the chairlift. We figured we might make it in time for the cablecar. Our guidebook also mentioned the option to take horses or even hike any of many trails that scale the mountain. Once we’d seen the falls, it was 6:30. We had seen another couple coming down just as we were climbing up to the highest of the 9 pools. They were probably 20 minutes or so ahead of us. Upon returning to the main trail, we stopped to chat with a local woman who makes a living selling food and drinks to starving and thirsty hikers. She explained to us that both mechanized means of returning down the mountain were now closed. She recommended that we hike back a couple km and take the horse trail back down. The couple before us, fortunately, had hired horses that were waiting for them at this junction. We set out for the trail. The lady informed us that it would start getting dark at about 7:30. We knew we had to hurry.
Any seasoned hiker would be getting nervous at this point. The horse trail was exactly that. A steep, rocky, slippery, meandering mud crevice meant for creatures with four legs and thick hooves. We clambered down in the twilight. Temperatures dropped and we donned our fleece jackets. Then the trail split into two trails. Squinting through the dark forest, we picked what appeared to be the more worn trail. Then it split again… and again… and again till it was too dark to tell nor care which one was the actual trail. The horse trail at one point merged with a stream and we found ourselves slipping and sliding down a muddy slope hanging on to the high grass as we continuously wiped each other out.
Soon it was completely dark and we’d been tripping and sliding down the mountain for almost two hours. As we struggled to find anything that resembled a trail till we managed to lose any trace of a path altogether. We flailed our arms grabbing anything to keep our slick running shoes from slipping. We grasped trees, thorn bushes, each other, and then… I grabbed a wall! There in the middle of this dark, thick forest was a wall – made of stone at about waist height. All around it was cubic in form and curved on top. I peered closer straining to see through the starlight. It was a gravestone. I looked around. We were sliding down this mountain through a sprawling hillside graveyard.
Mountains. Lost. Dark. Cold. Foreign land. In a graveyard. We tried not to think about it. We spotted some lights off in the distance and decided to plunge through the thick, tall foliage in their direction. All of a sudden, my foot fell through the grass into water up to my calf. We turned around. I sat down and slowly inched my legs down the mountain in front of me making sure there was solid ground ahead.
Somehow, slowly and cautiously, we managed to make our way to a massive 10-foot wall that surrounded a crop field. We waded through the low crop till the ground fell out from under us where there was an enormous crater and beyond it, a lake blocking our way. We doubled back. We headed back up the mountain, circling the crop and making our way to what appeared to be the lights of the farmer’s house. Surely, there had to be a road leading there. As we approached the lights, we realized it was a high barb-wired fenced government compound. We low-crawled past an illuminated window trying our best to blend into the surrounding farm.
We made our way around the high-mountain Chinese military base to the main entrance and slowly started to creep down the road away from the gate. Then, a ferocious guard dog threw himself at the gate snarling, spitting, barking and scaring the living duzi out of us. We scurried down the road as fast as we could hoping no one would come to the gate. The dog continued to bark. He barked so persistently loud that he alerted an entire pack of stray and wild dogs down the trail. They rose and approached the road making a raucous racket. We kept our eyes straight ahead and moved as fast as we could away from their growls.
The road eventually lead past another gate guard (who we snuck past as he was asleep at his post) and then in the back of Dali University! We approached two young female students (who I am sure would have run away at seeing my haggled self if it hadn’t been for AMD) and asked them how to get to the main gate. 10 minutes later and we had the university guardman call us a cab that took us back to Dali.
We laughed about it over a satisfying meal and many tall beers back on Yangren Jie in the center of town. As we sat there recalling our terrifying experience, it started pouring rain and continued raining for the rest of the night.
TIP #1 – When hiking in the afternoon, bring a flashlight (I ended up using the luminescence of my cell phone touch screen).
TIP #2 – Despite what guidebooks say, check in the local town for the latest transportation/closing times.
Guesthouse Galore
Following our experience in Dali, we figured we were all warmed up for the highlight of the trip – a 28 km hike through the deepest gorge in the world – Tiger-Leaping Gorge just north of Lijiang city. (more…)
