Dali Hiking Tour along The Ancient Tea-Horse Caravan Trail from Xizhou to Fengyu
The hike and the greater surroundings |
A more detailed view of the full hike |
My route traced on a road map |
Fengyang village on the Dali Plain |
The initial ascent, with two different routes: the road on the left, and the trail I chose on the right |
Cangshan’s famous rhododendron flowers were in full bloom |
This is typical of what the trail looked like. Most of the time it was deep in the cover of the forest, and only occasionally would emerge in a clearing to offer a view of the surrounding terrain |
This was the most frustrating part of the hike. Where the path makes a series of wild turns is where I tried to take a shortcut which ended up putting me in a dangerous canyon and having to backtrack |
Maybe I was just frustrated by the bad trail, but when I saw this it looked like a bad omen |
The incredibly detailed US Army map offers a clue as to why my trail seemed so wrong |
The best map I have of the area is one made by the US Army during World War II. It shows several trails (the black dotted lines) on Cangshan, including, it looked like, the one I was one. Studying this map, I believe I can see what my trail was up to. See the yellow arrow pointing to the trail over the ridge? That’s probably why my trail split off in what seemed like the wrong direction. I didn’t want to climb an extra ridge when the road was so close, so I tried to find a way along the river instead.
An obstacle in the river valley |
Once in Huadian Valley, the going got much easier. Here, my path follows the old stone road |
The old stone road running through Huadian Valley |
The only vehicle in Huadian Valley, this solitary bulldozer was hard at work leveling ruts in the roadway |
Huadian valley is the highest of its kind in Dali |
Huadian valley scenery |
Crops of the medicinal plant farm |
The route south of Huadian Valley |
I was passed by a 150-horse caravan on its way from Laping to Huadian |
This red earth fields were being prepared for the summer crop of beans |
Up on the red earth terraced ridge, the main trail continues on to Laping, but I took a lesser trail down into the Fengyu Valley |
The Qingyuan spring emerges here just below the entrance to the cave of the same name |
My path through Fengyu Valley |
Winter crops of wheat and beans paint Fengyu Valley in rich verdant shades |
The satellite view of Fengyu Valley is spectacular |
http://matthartzell.blogspot.com/2014/04/cangshan-mountain-three-day-hike.html