Merrell/Chong Family travels: Tiger Leaping Gorge

We spent today exploring Tiger Leaping Gorge. This place is pretty spectacular. From the top of the surrounding peaks to the river below is about 3800 meters. That's 12000 feet from river to peaks. Even just the walls closest to the river are several thousand feet high. Black Canyon of the Gunnison is about 3000 feet deep. Grand Canyon about 5000. Hell's Canyon is the deepest in America at around 8000. So this one is amazing. And at the bottom is a narrow river channel boiling with brown water as the Yangtze runs through. In the center of the canyon is a rock in the middle of the channel. This is where the name of the Gorge came from. The legend is that a tiger leapt from one shore to the rock and then to the next shore in order to escape a hunter. As Nick said when we saw the rock, "Dad, I'm pretty sure even if a tiger could make that leap he would have no where to go on the other side. He wouldn't be able to climb those cliffs." Pretty good story though.

After breakfast Nick and I took a shuttle a bit less than a mile down the road from our guest house. Here was one of several competing paths down to the river. These paths were built by local families who agresively watch the entrance to the paths and charge a toll. Its usually a sweet old lady manning the toll gate but no one gets by without paying their $2. The lady who ran our guest house actually recommended we go down path #1 and come up path #2 as they are the most interesting and path #2 is the fastest way back up as it includes about 100 feet of ladders straight up a cliff. That doubles the cost since you have to pay the toll on two paths but oh well. On both paths there were multiple little huts where an old lady would be set up with benches, a fire, snacks, drinks, trinkets, and other stuff designed to separate you from your money. I called these the "old lady toll booths" or the "old lady tax". It took us about 2 hours to go down what I'm guessing was about 1000 feet of vertical and less than a mile of walking. So way steeper than a staircase. At the bottom the river was running so high that the usual viewing area was awash and closed. There was also a suspension bridge out to the actual tiger leap rock. You couldn't quite go all the way to the rock because it was awash too but you could walk about 3/4 of the way across the bridge for some amazing pictures. Then it was time for the steep climb back up. This only took about an hour because we weren't constantly stopping to take pictures and because we ate up 100 feet of the vertical all at once on a huge scary ladder bolted to the cliff face.

After lunch we all went on a hike up above the village where our guest house was located. We are in the center of the gorge and until about 10 years ago the only way in was hiking. Many guests still choose to do the 8 hour hike in we spent about an hour and half walking on that trail. It climbs several hundred feet above the village and the road and then traverses the gorge. There are several guest houses in isolated villages along the route so many people do a 2 day hike in followed by a bus ride out. We did the bus in and out and just did some shorter hikes but still pretty spectacular and a bit less work.