Carnival festivities during Chinese New Year at Xiling Snow Mountain Resort

Yes sir, Yes sir, step right for your chance to win big prizes. A winner in every crowd. This is your big day! A trip to Xiling Snow Mountain resort, entertainment for everyone! Yes sir, Yes sir.

The excitement starts with the beautiful scenery at the resort parking lot at 1450 meters elevation. Ah Wilderness, as Eugene O'Neil used to say. Yes - just like Breckenridge, Aspen or Squaw Valley on Christmas morning. It's sunny and 60 degrees. The air smells great! The resort is at 2200 meters and the backdrop mountain (Red Stone Peak) is at 3300 meters.

It is 10.30 AM and we arrive at the valley floor parking lot. A complete solid mass of private cars and tour buses from Chengdu and other farther away provinces. This is a first time trip for many coastal people who have never seen snow. And of course its the height of the winter fashion season. There are more gorgeous boot styles than can be imagined - probably every style available in Europe and then some unique to China. The best stuff never gets out of country when it comes to boots.


































Hot air ballooning.









Children's bob sled run along minature "Great Wall of China."

ATV riding in mud.

Children's husky dog sled riding.




Motorcross 4WD roading in slush.

The festival crowds at 45 degrees F.






Snowmobile course in man-made snow.

The ski resort bunny slope with Bunnies and Hares.

The run.

Picture taking opportunities for all. Great backdrop.

Ambush fish Gulch, Wenjing River Valley, Chongzhou county

Hiking in Ambush fish (Fuyukou) Gulch, a southern tributary branch of the Wenjing (culture well) River ends in a high mountain meadow with only cows for company. A 12 kilometer walk with an 800 meter climb travels past two villages, 1 logging camp, a hydroelectric facility, a fish hatchery being refurbished and a few people. Quiet tranquilty if you want.

View to the north - the junction of this tributary with the Wenjing River is just out of view. The white stripes are "small" landslides caused by the 2008 Beichaun earthquake. The road is a nice 1.5 lane concrete road. Drive with caution, pass with fear.

A small waterfall on the way up.

The local peak guarding the end of the main valley. It's only 2815 meters high.

Another side road to the east. This road climbs up a narrow valley and ends back at Ji Guan Shan (Rooster's comb Mountain) town to the north and perhaps 5 kilometers from here.

Hand logging setup - logs are transported across the gorge by cable, powered by a winch, but the trees are hand cut and hand carried.

A northward view from a local ridge crest. Looking down on the most northern village and

the dirt road. Cell phone coverage does exist to here. Electricity ends just 1 kilometer south at the last home on the road. Almost everyone has a satellite dish.

A planted grove of evergreen trees amidst isolation, only 1 hour from the last village.

End of the hike in a trailess meadow just about at the drainage divide between the Wenjing river valley and the Xiling River valley to the south. The elevation is 1850 meters. If it wasn't so foggy, you could see the snow on the +3,000 meters peaks just to the west (right side of picture).

A delightful hike.

2009 Feb Chengdu Lantern Festival

This was the night of the living Lanterns. It started at sundown with little warning. The city has been taken over. First these mysterious alien lanterns started to fill the sky. The background hum of explosions started. The traffic was extra heavy. Joe, a native in a city of 12 million, complained that there were too many people on the street.








Camera cell phones held high in the air were everywhere- maintaining surveillance on the activities, trapping memories for all their friends.
Inside the first ring road, the lights on the river- on the fence posts and river walls were bright on. Young people where everywhere, strolling, hugging, cuddling in the street and launching these mysterious red lanterns into the sky. The rush hour traffic was oblivious to the rising of hundreds of lanterns, some only a meter above the trapped green taxi cabs, three-wheel motorcycles carrying people, vegetables, spent fireworks launcher crates, foot-pedal bicycles and electric bicycles. Floating in the river were these white flower cups with candles lighting the center, hundreds drifting down river. The crowds got thicker, the sky denser with lanterns. The rare lantern catches fire and like icarus, falls burning to earth. The explosions and crowds increase. Red and green fireworks bounce off the buildings. The teenagers can't keep their hands off each other. Have the aliens arrived? Is this a dream?


The lanterns don't stop. The traffic is jammed and yet the water truck with its watering schedule firehoses the plants on the median. Don’t stand too close unless you need a shower.







It is now 10:00 PM. The sky is full and everyone is laughing. The motorcycle guy in his helmet talks to me but do I understand him? Do I even need to? Everyone seems drunk around me but it's not New Year's Eve and no one is drinking. The teenage girls giggle at me and the older women smile too much. The policemen are out in droves so I must be safe. The battle continues.



Wait -pretty girls with red horns? Are they Jewish? It's 11 PM and I still have not eaten. Whistling tadpoles race into the sky, the blues and reds leave phantom paths through the sky in my memory. A rising full moon emerges from the clouds. There are no stars, only the moving red dots in the sky. As I look out the window as I type this now at 11:30 PM, the flashing lights are still all over town. The party continues. Was the earthquake at 5.15 AM on Sunday morning (Feb 8) a warning of things to come. Where am I and is it a dream?