Tiger Leaping Gorge
CHINA
One for the Memory Books
By LYNDI
Friday, April 29, 2016
“You guys have to see this”.
The urgency in my voice was enough to get Cal and Aaron to jump out of bed at dawn as they joined me on the patio of our guesthouse. Bright pink and amber rays of sun burst over the valley’s walls in individual chutes of color. We raced to the roof of the guesthouse to get a better view and snap a few photos, but the rising sun accelerated and soon overtook the valley floor, with the bright colors fading into the morning glow.
The sunrise was just further confirmation that our journey across the globe to reach Tiger Leaping Gorge was justified. It had taken a thirteen hour international flight, four hour domestic flight, an overnight train and a three hour bus journey to reach the trail head – but for good cause.
The Yangtze River cuts through one of the world’s deepest canyons leaving cliffs that plunge 12,000ft straight down. The trail sits a little over halfway up from the canyon’s floor and winds approximately 15 miles from Qiatou to Walnut Garden. Little guesthouses (called “tea houses”) dot the trail to provide comfy rooms and delicious food for trekkers. Most people do the trail over two days, but as this was our primary reason for coming to China in the first place, we wanted to try to stretch it for as many days as we could.
We left Lijiang on an early bus arranged by our guesthouse and traveled the backroads for about 3 hours to the trail head in Qiatou. The twisting roads were in decent shape, but they paralleled super-highways that likely would have taken an hour off our trip. The like-new highways seemed mostly barren, except for a few people manning the toll booths, so we didn’t fully understand why we took the slower backroads, but didn’t mind the scenic route. In fact, rain clouds sputtered drops through most of our ride, so a slow start allowed us to wait out the rain a bit.
The bus dropped us (and about twenty other tourists) off at the trail head in an ugly industrial town called Qiatou. The bus driver promised that if we left our big bags on the bus, he would personally deliver them to Tina’s Guest House where many travelers end their journey and would lock them in luggage storage there. Seemed legit.
So we took off with just day packs and walked along a wide paved road that did not resemble anything like the beautiful trail we had envisioned. We had been warned about touts following tourists at the beginning of the trails to demand guide services, payment or some other bogus charge, but no one paid any attention to us.
As the road wound further upward, we began to get a clearer view of … clouds. And a large factory they were building across the river where jackhammers echoed noisily across the valley.
Needless to say, we weren’t overwhelmed by the beginning of the trek. But after about an hour and a half, we literally turned a corner.
Around the corner, the clouds parted, the factory was at our backs, and the sound of the jackhammers was drowned by a light wind. The crowd of hikers also thinned and we were soon trekking alone through small Chinese villages.
I was a little apprehensive about the section of the trail known as the “28 Bends” as many hikers have written about the steep switchbacks you encounter about three hours in. But in reality, they weren’t bad at all. There was definitely more than 28 bends, and it probably only took us 20 minutes to traverse, but when we reached the summit we were in a different world. The trail began to hug the cliff side and vertigo-inducing views greeted us at every turn. This is what we’d been waiting for.
We had passed a few teahouses as we hiked, but saw a rooftop patio at Tea Horse Guesthouse that we couldn’t refuse. Most hikers stop for a beer or tea and continue on to Halfway House about an hour further, but we decided the view from the roof merited a longer stay.
As we were near the lead of the day’s hikers, there were plenty of rooms available and we grabbed a valley-facing three bedroom ensuite room for only 50RMB ($8) per person. The room was actually really nice – a bit rustic, and the floor in the bathroom was a little “funhouse-y” as it definitely tilted in one direction – but overall we were really impressed.
However, nothing compared to the view from the patio. We put our packs in our room and beelined for the rooftop (okay, with a pit stop at the restaurant to pick up some beer), set up our chairs, and watched the valley’s landscape change with the moving sun. Our views were only interrupted by friendly travelers striking up a conversation, Cal grabbing another round of warm beer, and the Chinese family’s drone.
I’ve often watched cats just stare out the window for hours and wondered, “What the hell are they looking at??” and I think I finally found the answer. When your view is mesmerizing, I think time actually suspends itself. Now granted, a 15km gorge and snow capped mountains are a bit different than the front yard, but that was as deep into a cat’s brain as I cared to go. Dinner that night was a tasty rice and noodle dish for about 30 RMB and then it was back to the rooftop to watch the sun go down.
The views continued to get even better as we headed out the next morning. As we were now at the top of the trail, the little road really hugged the cliff side and wound in and out of twists and turns.
The best stretch of the trail is probably between Tea Horse Guesthouse and Halfway Guesthouse. Since most trekkers had gone ahead to Halfway the night before, we had the trail mostly to ourselves. It took us a couple of hours to do one hour’s worth of hiking since we stopped to take tons of photos, but eventually made it to Halfway Guesthouse for a late morning tea and a quick bathroom break and then continued on. I actually didn’t even need to use the bathroom that much, but I’d been told it was a must. To be fair, the view from the loo was spectacular – the top half of the wall facing the valley is cut out so you can see the cliffs and mountains on the other side of the gorge – but as I had to squat to do my business, I mostly saw wooden planks and pee troughs as normal. But cool and unique nonetheless.
The day continued on with fairly flat hiking and continuously impressive views until we began our descent to the river. As most people know, going down is actually harder on the knees and legs than going up, so we were definitely feeling it by the time we got to Tina’s Guesthouse around noon.
Yet there was more down to go – but after Tina’s you get some serious switchbacks and even rambling ladders. You have to pay 15RMB at Sandy’s Guesthouse to start your descent, but it is money well spent as the trail is maintained by the locals and the chance to feel the power of the river rushing through the narrow gorge is not to be missed.
Once we were finally at the bottom, we enjoyed a well-deserved break and contemplated just sleeping on the slippery rocks rather than hiking back up to the road. Luckily we found a different path heading up with a much gentler slope. Sure, it was another 10 RMB charge for who-knows-what, but by the time we got to (the traditional Chinese named town of) Walnut Garden, we threw down our packs at Sean’s Guesthouse and enjoyed yet more crappy Chinese beer on another stunning patio.
Sean’s Guesthouse is almost three times as expensive as Tea Horse, so if we wanted our cash to last another two days, we had to move hostels the next morning. So we moved further down the road to Tibet Guesthouse and spent the day hiking in the countryside on a self-guided waterfall tour where we saw zero waterfalls, one crazy, rabid dog and more spectacular views of the gorge.
The Tibet Guesthouse was a great meeting place to talk to other travelers, and we spent the night trading stories with a German, a Tibetan, and a Czech, ate some of the best food on the trail, and chased it with a bottle of really nasty whiskey and a few shots of Chingka Joe – the guesthouse owner’s homemade brew.
So on our fourth day in the Gorge, we walked to Tina’s Guesthouse where our large packs had been stored by the bus driver, and caught a taxi to Lijiang to stock up on cash, our beloved dumplings and bus tickets to Shaxi.
It’s rare that something can meet all my expectations when I set a really high bar, but Tiger Leaping Gorge hit them all. Difficult, gorgeous, and remote. My only disappointment was that the hike wasn’t longer, but if that’s my biggest complaint, I’d say we had it pretty good.
