A gutsy tiger!
12 Feb 2014 | Hutiaoxia, Yunnan, China
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Following Sarka's advice, I make my way to Qiaotou (桥头 lit. bridge head) which starts the Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiaoxia 虎跳峡 in Chinese) over the Yangtze river. The legend being that to escape a hunter, a tiger jumped from one of the rock to the other side of the gorge. That one had guts because it's still quite of a jump over the rapids!
I start slowly around midday, taking my time as I want to spend several days here, making the most of the mountain far from the tourists crowd (it is not 'the season' for foreign tourist, and most Chinese tourists don't hike, they take the bus on the road down the gorge...). I meet some local Naxi people (the local minority) on the way, being nice but mostly used to 'milking cow' tourists, too bad! I stop for the night at the first village of importance after just a few hours of walk, so I can enjoy resting and reading in the mountain's fresh air, it feels so good!
The Naxi family running the guesthouse is really nice, it's only me and Wujia -a Chinese girl from Shanghai- as guest, the evening is spent chatting around the fire and drinking tea.
Second day we leave together with Wujia, it's the first time she hikes in the mountain and doesn't feel comfortable doing it alone. The walk is very pleasant, the pathway easy, and the view magnificient, perfect!
In the afternoon we split as Wujia wants to follow the pathway that goes down where there are buses, while I will stay longer up, thinking about climbing Huba mountain the following day.
But from there the way becomes much more difficult, with at some point a dangerous landslide I have to climb as I'm already too high to go back down. I finally make it to a guesthouse where I am the only guest and the people are rather cold...
The morning welcomes black clouds, it's dripping a bit, and doesn't look like it will get better. Definitely not a day to climb a mountain! Too bad, but I walk down, taking a tour at the gorge down there before hitchhiking my way out.