The trek to Gongga Mountain

20 June 2009

The Trek to Gongga Shan

Saturday morning started ordinarily enough in central Chendgu. By 7 AM, the sun had risen over Sichuan province. Down below, in the Sichuan soup, the white broth restricted visibility to the normal 1 to 2 kilometers. Traffic of bicycles, motorcycles, electric carts and motopeds, buses and cars was rising but the streets were still easily passable. Our combined driving team of ‘Joe’ and ‘Kevin’ (Chinese with adopted English names – easier for expats to remember) picked me up. Soon after that they easily and quickly picked up J and J.

By 8.15 AM we were off southwestward on the four-lane expressway tollroad, with a luxurious, legal and safe 120 km/hr speed limit. At this hour the road to the city of Ya’an (Formal Peace) was almost empty and only available for vehicle traffic. The morning coffee buzz was wearing off as the soup thinned to the south. For the last 20 kilometers on the toll road, the mountains to the west broke through, starting to get steeper and closer. The expressway restricted access to the road by pedestrians and other cars – toll gates and fences are wonderful devices. Thus we were successful in leaving the toll road at 133 km from Chendgu by 10.15 AM.

The road we wanted from here was concrete paved, route 318, the major southern shipping highway to Tibet via Kanding. We had previously received many warnings about this road. Sid talked of road construction where traffic could be stopped for 3 hours until one lane would be permitted through. H. arrived at a construction blockade and gave up, returning to Chengdu.
We found the road by default, there was little choice. The kilometers markers suggested that we entered the road near 2600 km. This two lane road was snuggled along the edge of a large river, at the bottom of a 1,000 meter plus canyon. Farms, villages, and towns were dug into narrow, almost flat places along the road. Crops were doing well – corn flower husks out, string bean vines in abundance in every flat spot along the road. The total cloud cover broth had risen to what seemed the 3,000 meter elevation above us.

The roadway was now the standard highway- used for everything and all competing for space equally and fairly. This lifeline road carried 10 wheeler trucks with produce, gravel, soil, cement, manufactured goods, construction equipment on flat beds, full size buses to Kanding and beyond, a few passenger cars, three wheel local taxis, 200 cc motorcycles, umbrella mounted bicycles, school children walking home, and old men staring off into space on the roadway, lost in a dream that escaped. The non-mobile users of the road are especially significant- with hundreds of overloaded, overworked trucks traveling the road, breakdowns are normal. Smoke rising in dense clouds from truck undercarriages is the norm. With no road shoulders, the extensive repairs are done in the road, parts neatly laid out in front of the vehicle. Buses pick up their passenger in the lane. The little vendor stores selling food, water, honey often have no pull offs – customers just stop in the lane. After this are the miscellaneous road uses for food preparation, crop weeding, washing clothes, building construction, brick supplies, cement, and drying tea, spices or vegetables.

Our luck seemed to hold. The feared road construction is the first 10 kilometers of this canyon road – from just west of Ya’an to the small city of FeiShanYang (flying - Sheep). Yes, the traffic was one lane moving west, bumper-to-bumper. The earthmovers and pavement peckers were busy. We watched as a two-lane bridge had its concrete roadway reduced to rubble. Worries are for later. The section was a success – we made 10 kilometers in an hour. Pass the beer.

Searching for Wolong, Sichuan province

28 June 2009

Searching for Wolong

Never one to let imperfect conditions slow me down, I left Chengdu at 7.05 AM in a light rain to visit Wolong, the Panda habitat forest reserve. This forest preserve, according to the pre-earthquake guidebooks, is a 3 hour bus trip from Chengdu. The roads were quite empty. The expressway was empty.
I expected to follow the published official maps; exit the expressway at the southern border of Dujiangyan city, cross the bridge southward and then turn west. This paper road passes Dujiangyan while hugging the south bank of the major river until the westward turnoff to Wolong. Then we’d meander on a narrow road up a branch river to Wolong.
Nice fantasy.
As we neared Dujiangyan, my driver advised that we take a sparely labeled (in both characters) exit before the highway end. This was news to me since we’d done this route numerous times to Qingcheng and LongChi parks and never ventured this way. So I went with the flow upriver on an expressway that is not on any of the published maps. This four lane expressway bypassed Dujiangyan completely, went across several large bridges and at least 3 tunnels. As I found out later, the opening of this expressway was announced in the Chinese media in the middle of May, so it had only been open one month.
The expressway ended after a tunnel- 1-1/2 hours from central Chengdu. About 500 meters later a sign directed us to the left, across a bridge and tunnel to the Wolong road and YingXui. Ying Xui, Wenchuan county is the unfortunate town that was almost above the epicenter of the 8.0 earthquake on 12May 2008 at 2.28 PM. The elementary school collapse was the heartbreaker, in a country where one child is the norm for urban families. YingXui is located just after the expressway ends on both sides of the road and at the junction with the Wolong road.
It is now a year after the devastating earthquake. Reconstruction is proceeding with all activities- roads, bridges, and buildings. Most of the temporary and longer-term temporary blue-roofed portable homes are empty and gone, the people being relocated to better places. The heartbreak is still there even if no tears can be seen. Most of the town has been cleared with new foundation work in preparation, drilling deep holes for foundations. I’ve never seen so many small scale drill rigs before.
Local tourism to visit the devastation has been set up, signs telling of what happened and where things were, official parking lot space and a few memorial engraved stones. Katrina revisited. There is even a published map of earthquake effected areas, routes and distances to these areas with a primer on earthquakes – available in downtown Chengdu from XinHua bookstore.

The valley was pretty with mountains whose tops were hidden in the clouds as a light rain mist still fell. We exited the tunnel and an immediate right turnoff directed us to the un-signposted road to Wolong. The road is a 1 to 2 lane dirt track blasted?, or dug? between a raging river and vertical canyon walls. My driver was not completely convinced we were in the right place. He asked three times along the road.




























I was in shock. Red signs were posted along the road less than every 500 meters warning of “Fei shi lu”-- Flying rocks on road. Vertical cliffs and steep canyon walls hung over us. Fresh slide rock littered the road in places. A few trucks and cars traveling down-river passed us as we waited in pullouts. This wasn’t a road, just a Colorado jeep trail connecting Leadville to Alma. A journey in time and space: From 4-wheeling in Colorado 20 years ago to 2-wheeling on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. We passed an earthquake lake with drowned trees. The Madison landslide earthquake lake at the West Entrance to Yellowstone National Park flashed in my mind from my visit in July 1972, during geology field camp. Only the infrequent leveled remains of buildings were seen. The canyon cliffs soared more than 1,000 meters into the clouds. Boulders choked the landslide rock chutes. More earthquake lakes were passed including one that drowned an entire village of perhaps 10 to 15 buildings - water still raging through hotel walls.








































After the quake, the road was gone, buried under rock, water or ripped off the canyon wall and carried downstream. Ravaged bridge foundations were passed. High-water sediment marks above the car were seen in one spot along the road.
Passed a standing dam, where they opened the gates to save the dam. Further up river, a landslide took out an entire hydroelectric facility – only some twisted metal left.
The road route is heavily occupied with activity. Full time construction was in evidence along every spot on the road – carting off rock, blasting rock, hand drilling foundations, pouring concrete bricks for walls, bulldozing off roads, preparing for tunneling (two new tunnel entrances were prepared).



























We passed the shelled entrance gate to the Wolong habitat preserve. Not much left. I stopped to photograph. A piece of the gate collapsed in front of me. At one spot the river narrowed due to one rock slide so the river rapids foam splashed on the road. I could (and did) touch it as we passed. Would the road still be there on the return? Would the construction crews let traffic pass on return? Baboons and Bridges.














At 25 kilometres still to go to reach Wolong (and only 18 km done), we had reached 3 hours of travel. The rain had decreased to an occasional mist. Clouds still covered the sky and upper canyon walls. We reached a spot where a crane was removing rock. Down river traffic was not bothered by dodging around the crane. I’d seen too much already, so we turned around and headed downstream, past the foam, shattered gate, flooded village, open dam and drowned trees. At one bend a small rock fall started above us, only one piece smacked the car roof.








































At the junction with the paved road at Ying Xui, perhaps a dozen trucks, mini-vans and cars were parked. They had closed the road to westward travel for construction until tomorrow, Monday. A Yunnan-originated tour from Great Britain, heading for Wolong twiddled thumbs for recreation. The mist had stopped.

Instead of heading back, we drove into Ying Xui, or that is to say around the edges of what was Ying Xui. I saw the memorials, the preserved wreckage, and the cleanup crews from the recently emptied survivor’s camp. Outside and south of town, a small dirt road ran along the eastern edge of the river, passed a closed coal mine. Along here I walked for some peace and butterflies. I climbed a farmer’s switchback road for a view over the green, scenic and still clouded in valley. At the top switchback, the farmer sat along the edge of the road with his straw hat looking out and enjoying the view. I briefly joined him, feeling slightly guilty for disturbing his peace.

A walk in Longchi Park, Dujiangyan, Sichuan province

Sunday 14 June 2009

Long Chi Park, west of Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province – walking the entrance road

Today it was time to visit Longchi park, just west of Dujiangyan.We left Chengdu at 7 AM and had an uneventful trip to Dujiangyan. We drove around the north side of town and followed an urban road that parallels the river past the Dujiangyan historic waterworks park and pass Baisha river bridge. After here, the road took on a more rural appearance, still concrete but with much fewer hotels. The road led past a large dam with a partially drained reservoir – presumably due to last years +8 earthquake.

The day in Chengdu started out in the normal massive pea fog but at Dujiangyan, the fog departed and the sun broke through some high clouds. Just before the town, it was clear enough to see a backdrop of monster mountains just behind the city.















The road climbed up switchbacks and I could guess where it was going to go. It was headed straight for a large rock quarry, along the edge of the reservoir. Just before we got there, the answer revealed itself- we entered a long tunnel in the midst of reconstruction. The internal lighting was sketchy since the tunnel was being repaired. As we drove through, they had scafolding in several places so only one car could go through at a time. Workers with reflector vests were walking in the dark, four guys were lugging an iron rail used for moving the scafolding to another location. We exited into Longchi valley, high up on a cliff face. Down below I could see the axial valley road, steep mountains on the other valley wall, streaked with earthquake landslide scars. Now the clouds had left and I see clear views of all the mountains. Although the valley basin divide peaks are only up to 3,000 meters, the valley floor is still only at 1,000 meters. As I say, these mountains scream for attention they are so steep.















Two temporary earthquake villages with their dark blue roofs could be seen on the valley floor. We reached the valley floor, crossed a bridge and headed north upvalley to the park. The earthquake devastation is pretty severe – almost no building is still standing that was pre-earthquake, a few completed new building are also present. It is the almost continuous rebuilding of hotels, tea houses and homes along the road that is impressive. Such a massive scale of activity and work effort, I have never seen in the USA. The Katrina rebuilding efforts by comparison were nonexistant.
The new 2 lane road up the valley is usually reduced to one lane with all the rebuilding. Almost all of the earthquake destroyed buildings have been leveled with only brick scavaging activity still going on being seen. We reach the park entrance gate fairly easily but it is closed. My driver says the park is closed and we can't go in. With almost no language skills, All I can do is agree. I'm just happy to be standing here and I'm not concerned since there were plenty of down river places to walk along a road or farmers trails. So Joe (Zhou), makes small talk with another guy also standing around near the gate and I just relax- no need to hurry or anything. Joe comes back and says that the other guy has a resturant-tea house-hotel just up the road and we can park there and I can walk up the road while Joe schmuzzes at the hotel.
















Off to one side are the stored ski's from when the park was open in the Winter. During the winter, they held a winter snow festival with sking in the park. but now with all the infrastructure destroyed it may be a year or more before it re-opens. But it won't be for lack of effort- the rebuilding is on-going as fast as possible with huge numbers of people involved. On one little walk I witnessed several locations with foundation core drilling, surveying, rock removal, building construction - all within the park.













So I pack up my camera, 1 liter of water, and a package of dried sliced bananas and kiwis. I start off on a sunny day at 9.30 AM at 1270 meters elevation. I follow the broken pavement road, branch off onto a new bypass road to replace a section that was un-repairable. This new cut, switchbacks up a bare cliff face of gneiss-granodiorite and rejoins the old road near a cell phone tower, which is not back to working yet. At the junction, I turn left and head north just about 10 meters above the new dirt road.



















I continue onward up switchbacks, the second one has a flock of goats with lots of kids sleeping on the road.














I walk two more switchbacks, turn a corner and view two red-brown baboons strolling down the road towards me. These guys are big, perhaps 60 pounds each. I don't know anything about monkey etiquette and I certainly don't speak their language. I turn around and start downhill since there is no way I'm going to walk by them. I walk a lower switchback and wait to see if they just cut downhill and go past me. Nope- They walk down the bend following the road so I continue downhill, keeping at least 100 meters distant. A motorcyclist comes downhill and I flag him down. With my language book, I try to ask if the monkeys are still there and are they dangerous. That was a failure – He ended up writing (Which I appreciated since a few of those words I knew.) I gathered he was telling me what was up the mountain but nothing about monkeys. Then two other motorcycles arrive and he asked them if they would take me up. Well, that would solve the problem one way. I'd worry about the down trip later. So I climbed on the back of the cycle, no helmet, and held onto the strap on the seat. We traveled uphill at an ungainly 15 kilometer an hour. We passed the first monkey sitting on the side. The second monkey was three switchbacks up sitting on the metal guardrail. The monkey gave me a solid monkey look, sort of like a paddington bear stare but only monkeys do it. So now there are probably 3 monkeys, I've got to worry about... later.












After about 10 minutes, I felt that I was far enough way, about 1.5 kilometer as a vulture flies from where the monkeys were. So I asked to get off. I thanked them, although they thought I was strange to walk and off they went. It was now 10.41 AM. I continued on up on foot, passing leveled foundations and empty parking lots. Large boulders occasionally in the road and broken pavement common. Sometimes only one lane was left. I passed a former small hotel that might have had 10 rooms. Only a few walls were standing – double brick wall construction without a single piece of rebar and no poured concrete corners














Off a short side road is a small road that leads to another closed tea house that looks like it was built in a small botanical style garden. Numerous flowers of magenta, white and blue are along the road. Several trees are in flower and smell really good.























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I come around a bend, and the road ended where a piece of the mountain higher up had slid off and took out an area about 300 meters wide. The landslide debris reached the valley floor and slide slightly uphill creating a small landslide lake. All the rock is a non-foliated gneiss with a granodiorite composition. This is the park that two guidebooks had mentioned contained Paleozoic fossils. I sit on a knob of landslide debris watching all the work going on below. One work crew is checking the plastic piping that utilizes the lake for drinking, washing and cooking. One dump truck and front end loader are filling debris at a spot along the landslide toe. North of that is another pair doing the same thing. The road reappears on the other side of the landslide scar where the workers are, so I'm finished for the day – being allowed to walk in a closed park. It is now 12.10 PM noon at 1820 meters elevation. The air is cool, with great scenery.

I start my walk down. By 1.00 PM it is obvious that the clouds and haze are returning. It gets darker and the visibility decreases. Two cars and a motorcycle pass me going downhill. One car comes uphill. The traffic is light with one vehicle every 10 to 30 minutes. Now I plan my strategy for walking down the mountain. If I'm really blocked by monkeys, I can wait until another car or motorcycle comes by and try to ride down with them. My primary strategy though is I remember the monkeys at Ermei Mountain. If you give them space they will ignore you and if they pay too much attention, throw some food to distract them. So I put my banana chips in my front lower cargo pants pocket. This is an easy reach, fling and walk.
I enter the area where the monkeys were and carefully watch the road. Nothing but butterflies – which won't land for me to photograph. I pass the goats still sleeping on the same switchback. I've seen no monkeys and I'm only 3 switchbacks distant from the new cliff face road which has no vegetation on it and would not be a good place for monkeys to hang out. I figure I'm safe now. I pass the small stream that crosses the road and drops the 10 meters to the new road. Then I walk about another 30 meters and I see a monkey in a tree, off the road. No worries. I put my hand on the bananas just in case and keep walking quietly. Maybe I can get by one monkey. I get past the monkey on the tree and he jumps on the road. Opps- So I fling the banana chips to the far side of the road behind me and he heads for the food. Good sign.
I look forward for the first time and see I've got real problems. There are about 10 to 15 monkeys sitting on the ground and in the road. One real big baboon starts to charge me and gets to about 10 to 15 meters (it seemed closer). He stops and bares his teeth and barks at me. I stop and start backing up slowly, arms outstretched. I pass the other monkey who is busy eating banana chips. I turn and start uphill. When I reach the creek and I realize I've got an easy escape route and the food will keep them busy for a few moments which is all I need.
I jump down into the creek alluvium and in less than a minute I'm on the new road jogging until I'm around the bend with no monkeys in sight. Below me are a bunch of people taking pictures with their cell phones of the creek. Three people are also gathered around a core box looking at granodiorite core which seems to be foundation testing for a formal bridge across the creek.
From the creek it is only a 30 minute walk to where Joe is resting with the car. I reach the car and gently wake Joe. He's a little slower today than normal, so I just sit and look at the view. As I found out later, he isn't feeling too good.

While Joe is washing up from sleeping in the car, I'm invited to sit and talk with a man and his family. He is drinking tea and chatting with his family and friends. I bring up my iced coffee milk. He lives in Dujiangyan and comes up here for mountain air and rest every chance he has time. He is a supervisor of a group of engineers who because of the earthquake have been re-assigned to work in Chengdu. Among his small talk with me, he says there are a lot of monkeys up here. I smile and say, yes I know.

I don't think I will offer to take people up here for hiking.

A walk north of Ji Guan Shan town

A hike north of Ji Guan Shan (Chicken's Comb Mountain) town, Wenjing River valley, Chongzhou district, Sichuan province.













Mid May 2009, in the mountains west of Chengdu is always a good time of the year. The mountain farm stays are just starting to open, although most are not. The city weekend vacationers have not yet arrived. The first crop has been harvested with the second crop already planted – corn, string beans, and maybe squash. Road repair, and dwelling rebuilding is going full blast. Multi-ton trucks are hauling dirt and gravel in a fever of construction. Public school is still in session. The Wenchaun earthquake damage is still omnipresent – giant landslide scars on the mountains, rebuilt roads where landslides took out the roads, and damaged building gone and being rebuilt. The change is rapid. One month damaged roads and buildings, next month fixed road and no building, the third month, a new building.

We left Chengdu, Sunday morning, two families out for a day in the mountain sun. After a leisurely start we reach the canyon mouth of the Wenjing River – a wide two lane highway suitable for two lanes of cars except the extra space is used for drying crops, piling bricks, repairing tires, fixing broken fuel lines, mixing cement, waiting for a bus, chatting with friends, bicycle riding, walking, storing furniture, parking for weddings, and washing clothes. We dodge the river gravel boulders on the roadway, gifts dropped from giant trucks. As we travel west the adjacent mountains increase in height. Slopes are 30 degrees and steeper. These are mountains that scream at you for attention.

The canyon gets narrower and the traffic sparce. At the entrance to Ji Guan town proper, we turn right before the river bridge and travel up a narrow concrete road, about 1.5 lanes wide. Over a 2 kilometer stretch we turn up a side canyon, past several moderate-sized hotels. Satellite dishes are everywhere. A cell phone tower is off to one side. The cool morning air is a celebration of the Catskills just before Memorial Day weekend.

We park about 3 kilometers up a northern side canyon from Ji Guan, next to a 4 story hotel, but downriver from a river gravel pit operation. A truck passes every 10 minutes. We unload packs, kids, dog and ourselves. Off we go starting at 830 meters. After 15 minutes, we have left the gravel pit behind and peace reigns. The afternoon mist has not moved it yet so the towering northwestern valley walls are clear and bare. The adjacent peaks less than 4 kilometers away crest at 2800 to 3000 meters. Tan landslide scars streak the green peaks. The butterflies fill the fields- lots of cabbage and sulfur butterflies, less common are the wood nymphs, Painted Ladies and the black Mormon swallowtails (well, maybe a Spangle). The rest of our crew pace themselves up the switchbacks on a one lane concrete road, children running uphill, adults on lookout. The only traffic is the rare motorcycle; puttering uphill, coasting silently downhill.
The vegetation is full. The green beans are only 1/3 meter tall. The scattered evergreen tree farms in dark green clusters on the hillsides.

We climb after 4 kilometers to a low ridge crest at 1400 meters, although the road continues but our time is up. Who gave up – the kids, dog or us?

Cell phone tower on crest, toadie tadpoles in the ditch; a family at work roofing a new building going up. Stone path up a farm trail. Work crew closes a road for an hour to do some repairs. Have a smoko- Chat and laugh with the visiting city people. School children walking down the mountain Sunday afternoon for a week of classes in town, a weeks supply of clothes in tow. Tiny french poodle city dogs on R&R in the countryside. Chickens asleep under the satellite dish catching some waves… better eggs. Patches of tree farms, harvest time not yet.

Three PM, the fog starts to move in, the peaks are gone.

At 5 PM, the evening rains have arrived. Dark, low visibility, the ghosts of mountains past.