Tiger Leaping Gorge – Hutiao Gorge, Yunnan, China

Tiger Leaping Gorge
Hutiao Gorge, Yunnan, China

He lay fully clothed on the wooden bed, freezing. Battling against the cold, the suffocating smoke and Shang Li for ownership of the only blanket.

Some gnarly weather approaching!

A roaring fire billowed smoke, whipping in typhoons around the room, keeping them alive. Opposite two men clung to the fire, playing checkers with coins on a roughly etched board.

The small wooden hut lay amongst a spattering of similar dwellings; in warmer seasons nomadic herders would sporadically inhabit the buildings, briefly, moving with their beasts that now roamed far below.

Away up, passing fresh tracks that lead to a spring, the mountain climbed to its peak. The final push of the day’s exhausted excursion had opened up onto an impenetrable plateau. The vast storm clouds that hung low in the shallow air, miles away that evening, were encroaching and howling about the desolate summit. Rolling down the barren slopes and leaving wooden shacks and humans alike feeling humble. Somewhere hidden, bracing the storm, a small delicate white flower, so at odds with its surroundings, peered out through the bleak dark night. Watching over the hut emitting its solitary beacon, striving against the swirling elements, the light dancing its insignificant cause.

Anyone seen this flower?

Looking out past the verges of thick alpine forests that descended south in sharp rises and falls and through these forests, treading time worn paths that clung to the contours. Always these paths terraced and weaved, taking the shortest routes over unassailable obstacles. A waterfall, where they had been refreshed, retained a footprint hole in its ice surface.

A precarious bridge that skirted a granite wall traversed a river that poured out of a sheer face of rock. Loose footing had now made the passage more precarious.

The dislodged bough was already far downstream carried over the crystal waters of fresh tributaries. Past the point where many hours ago Ed and Shang Li had first seen the peak and the magnitude of their task.

It was also the spot they had met the two locals, their distant figures growing larger and more defined as they bounded up secret trails to overtake them at the crest of this foothill. They were searching for a fabled rare flower, which was coveted by traditional Chinese medics and so rare a single specimen sold for vast sums.

Tiger Leaping Gorge north of Lijiang, Yunnan province, China. From the local village that houses Halfway Hostel heading up from the village, we began climbing some rather perilous scree and passed an ominous cave. At the top of this climb we met the two locals who were home visiting their families and were setting of to look for this medicinal, valuable flower. They agreed to take us with them (good old Shang Li my travel companion) but I believe the guesthouses will arrange guides for around 100 quai, although I don’t know if this is per day or for the whole trip. If they take you by the same route that we travelled one day would certainly not be enough to appreciate it fully.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Inevitably the famous flower eluded us and our hosts, as does the name of this specimen, which I wrote down at the time in pinyin but has since become lost somewhere along the line. If anyone out there with perhaps a botanical knowledge or otherwise could enlighten me it would be much appreciated as ideally I would like it to be the title of this piece.

The next morning we were chased of the mountain by the aforementioned snowstorm and had barely time to reach the comfort of our hostel before the surrounding hillside glistened a carpet of snowflakes.