At 4100 Meters

LASTEST UPDATE

Written by Xiao Ma September 26, 2009

Dali, Yunnan Province, South West China.

It’s already 6pm when we decide to go to sleep on the mountain. Just a small walk, well 2 hours away, there’s a pleasant, quiet local guesthouse. ‘Higher Land Inn,’ (30 Yuan/bed) is just the place with hot running water, a dog and two young girls who take care of the food, the guests and the cleaning.

After a well deserved dinner, we go to sleep. We know the following day is going to be longer and harder. We want to reach three small lakes at high altitude and to do so, we need to walk two or three days to the summit of Cang mountain 苍山, weather prevailing of course.

I’ve been many times to the top (4100m) and even spent a night there but I’ve never taken this extended route before.

When we decide to leave the guesthouse, it’s almost 11am. We’re going to have to walk 4/5 hours before arriving at Xi Ma Tan 洗马潭.This is a high basin (3800 m) where there is a small pond which farmers used to wash their horses many years ago.

We get there by 4pm and decide to go a bit higher where the TV station (television antenna the local dub station) is, to erect the tent and be protected from the strong wind. To our surprise, we find there are several workers who are rebuilding the station and there is no way to find a suitable place to stay. The station used to rent bedrooms - actually one with about 6/8 beds - but they stopped 4 years ago.

The weather is worsening, but we have to continue our walk. Two hours later it will be dark and we need to find a place to put the tent.

From the TV station, the trek leads us downhill to the west, then follows the ridge again. It’s raining now and the path is becoming very slippery. As it gets darker and darker, we decide to build the tent. We are not sure of our location; the fog and the darkness don’t allow us much visibility. The rain is hard now, but we found a place on the downside of the trek, so the wind shouldn’t bother us .

We’ve been walking hard for 9 hours, it’s a bit before 8pm when we take off our wet clothes and try to sleep in our damp and saggy sleeping bags. The altitude plus the effort has affected us too, we are a bit dizzy .The rain and the wind stops us from getting a good rest and around 7am, we get-up to continue our increasingly unnerving trip .

We had hopped to reach hei long tan 黑龙潭 ( Black Dragon Pond ) in sunny weather. We are tired but make good-time. The sight of the clouds is amazing, even if the conditions are not ideal, the scenery reminds me of surrealist art; big rocks suspended in floating apocalyptic trees.

After 5 hours we get to see the lakes. The weather is improving and we start to imagine ourselves drinking the pure water and swimming in it. However, by the time we get there, it’s already 4pm and the area is surrounded by the fog again. With no way to camp and spend one more night in these conditions, we decide to continue the trek back Dali with the goal of getting there before nightfall.

From there, Dali looks near, but due to our fatigue and the heavy rain, we’ll need at least 4 more hours before to be able to reach the road and catch a bus.

It is near 8 pm when I take a hot shower and I already begin to think about the mushrooms I am going to eat in a Bai restaurant, down Ren Min Lu 人民路.

During the trek, strangely, we didn’t meet anybody. The Trek is not an easy one but if you take your time, spend one night at 洗马潭 and another at 黑龙潭 with good weather conditions, it is one of the best excursion that you can do in Dali county and still relatively unknown.

Don’t underestimate the equipment you’ll need to carry. You will require a real tent with a warm sleeping bag, a lot of food and a camping gas .The heavy rain didn’t leave us any chance to make a proper wood-fire. Bring some salt in case, on our way down, you find some leeches in the mud, as we did…ouch!

For those who don’t feel they have the energy for a 3 days trip, you can just spend a night at Xi Ma Tan洗马潭 and admire the view from Yu Ju玉局 peak at 4097m .