YaDing National Park

our hotel

The entrance to YaDing National Park is about a 2 hour drive from DaoCheng. The park has a main entrance where you buy tickets. From the other side of the ticket office there are no cars allowed, everything is run by shuttle buses which bounce between the scenic trail, YaDing town (about 6 hotels and a restaurant) and the main entrance. Karen had booked us a room in one of the hotels in the town so we checked in first and then went to start of the scenic trail. Our hotel was a traditionally built Tibetan style house, all big rooms, no windows and high ceilings. We had a private room but most people were in the main room in tents full of pillows and electric blankets. The people in the hotel were really friendly and kept feeding me homemade alcohol and yac meat stew or porridge.

(some googled background information) The Yading National Reserve at the south edge of Daocheng County has been considered as the most sacred place in western Sichuan Province by Tibetan pilgrims. Mountains and lakes in the reserve are believed holy. The three sacred mountains Jambeyang (or Yangmaiyong in Mandarin, 5958 meters high), Chanadorje (Xiaruoduoji, 5958 meters high), Shenrezig (Xiannairi 6032 meters high) has saw stream of pious Tibetan pilgrims circling them, in the hope of a better and happier life. It is said that those three mountains were blessed in the 8th century, when Buddha Padmasambhava shed his divine light on the range, and named the three elevations after three bodhisattvas.

From the town to the beginning of the scenic trail was about 20 minutes in a bus, there were thousands of buses flying past so we had no problem getting about the park. the park has 2 main routes, a longer one and a shorter one. On the first day we climbed the stairs on the shorter route to a lake.

near the top

Sadly the weather was cloudy but we had amazing views, my camera tried but the poor thing just couldn't cope. Just believe me when I say it is something else.

Bottom of the trail

The second day we tackled the longer tougher route. It was a muddy, slippery trail that at times was little more than trying not to fall over into the smelly mud. We climbed to the top past glaciers and rivers at which point I nearly passed out. It would seem I not only enjoy getting car sick and sea sick, but I can now add altitude sickness to that list. We had made friends with some guys from Beijing and had climbed up with them. One of them wanted to head back to the trail so I went with him, feeling better almost as soon as we got to the bottom. Weird and unpleasant feeling over!

The hotel from DaoCheng came and picked us up from the entrance to the park. Not at all keen to relive the bus I booked a 50 minute flight back to Kunming. It was the best 300元 I have ever spent, saved me 28 hours on a bus and nearly 2 days!