There is a gorge on the Yangtze River called "Tiger Leaping Gorge". The river is so narrow through here that, according to legend, a tiger once leapt across to escape the hunt. Joe Petolino read up on this area and learned about some interesting hiking trails. Joe and I decided to use our two days in the town of Lijiong to hike some of these trails.
Information about the trails was tantalizing but ambiguous. The only map we could find was "not to scale". Every guidebook we read failed to answer all our questions and even with the help of the Internet we never answered all of them. We decided to go anyway and try to get local information on the way.
We took a taxi from Lijiang to Qiautou and at a place called "The Backpackers Cafe" we talked to a very nice English speaking woman. She gave us another map (not to scale) and answered most of our remaining questions. We arrived late and did not stop to read the bulletin board at the cafe. We bought some fruit and took off.
It cost ¥30 to get into the gorge area, up from the amounts we had heard in the guides, but that’s life. The trail start was supposed to be at or after a school and the maps (not to scale) showed the trail going past the right side of the school. Our guidebooks said ambiguous things like "On the other side of the school you will start seeing yellow arrows directing you the rest of the way." It was only much later, by reading a "Lonely Planet" guidebook that we found out we were supposed to go in the main gate of the school, walk past the basket ball court and the football field and "then you will start seeing [red and blue] arrows directing you the rest of the way".
So we were looking lost on the road when a local man came by an offered "I help you". He directed us up a steep trail that did not match any of the descriptions we had read. He was well dressed, had good shoes and didn't look like a highway robber. We showed him our maps and thought we communicated to him where we wanted to go. One problem we had may have been that one of the places on the correct trail was the "Naxi Village Guest House". All the villages in the area are inhabited by the ethic minority people called Naxi and our friend kept answering in the affirmative, he was taking us to a Naxi village.
It turned out to be his Naxi village and we saw his house and met mom and dad. We were invited in for a meal, some water, and a rest. We assumed that our friend was going to hit us up for being our guide and was drumming up business for mom and dad. We refused and showed him our map trying to get directions for getting onto the main trail. We were late, obviously on the wrong trail and needed to get back on track. We refused hospitality, sat in the dirt on the side of the trail and drank our own water.
Our guide (we never wanted a guide) dropped his pack and continued to offer "I help you", finally saying "No money, I help you". On our map he indicated that he knew the way to link us back with the main trail, part way up the steepest part. We let him lead us out of town, a maze of crisscrossing trails. He lead us past some spectacular viewpoints where we could see the Dragon Jade Snow Mountain. This mountain is almost 5600 meters tall and always covered with snow. It is the highest mountain that either Joe or I have ever seen with our own eyes.
Our guide did loose a bit of credibility when he seemed to be asking directions from some of the other villagers on the way by. Eventually he left us after pointing to the only trail remaining ahead of us and indicating that this would take us where we wanted to be. Apparently he was well meaning and thought he had shown us a shortcut.
At first our shortcut followed the contours of the mountainside and we figured it had to eventually cross the official trail on its way up. But then our trail went downhill into a little village. Later we found out that this was a village on the main trail BEFORE the steepest part and we had wasted most of the climb up to our guide’s village and back down again. The shortcut had taken us three hours to get to the first stop on the main trail that we should have seen after only two hours of hiking.
We still had to find the correct trail so we jumped into the warren of criss-crossing trails that was this village. We followed one trail steeply up the hill that simply followed an irrigation channel. Mentioning to a local the name of one of the villages farther up the trail got us some finger pointing back down and to the left. On the way down we saw a more major-looking trail to the left that followed some power lines out of town. This looked like the correct trail but did not have the yellow arrows that our guidebooks mentioned. We followed it anyway and started climbing switchbacks up the steep mountain. The guidebooks did mention that the correct trail had 28 switchbacks. We lost count.
Finally after 5 hours of hiking we found ourselves at a mountain pass. We had another spectacular view of the Dragon Jade Snow Mountain but we were obviously in the wrong pass on the wrong trail. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. Our "trail" split into two or three yak trails as it fell off the cliff on the other side of the pass. Our only sane option was to give up on making it to one of the guest houses and turn back to Qiautou. We went back to the village and followed a tractor road down to the main road. Joe suggested this route because it was going to be dark before we got back to town and a road would be easier to follow than a trail.
In Qiautou we had dinner at the Backpackers Cafe, sent an email to our friends in Lijiang telling them that we would be close to town and would met them earlier. We asked about accommodations and found that there were two rooms available above the cafe. "But only one bath, and no shower". One room was a store room and the other the manager’s sister’s room, apparently out of town. "Where is the bathroom?" we asked. "I show you", and she lead us back down the stairs. Past the door to the restaurant. Past the next couple of businesses. Down the ramp into the local slaughterhouse. And pointed out the W.C. there. I used it once to pee. It was cast out of a single block of concrete with a trough urinal on one side and two slots in the floor so two guys cold squat at once with no partitions. This was the free toilet, there was a pay one on the other side of the bridge 100 meters farther away. That is the one we used.
In the morning we were awakened by the sound of pigs squealing one after another at the slaughterhouse. We went for a day hike up the correct trail just to see what it was like. After two hours we got to the first village again and stopped for refreshments. Then we returned to town to meet our friends. We never got far enough down the valley to actually see the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. Our friends had received the email message and arrived at 2:30 PM so we could join them when they went to see the gorge. Finally we got to see it and climb down the step steps to photograph it up close.
