Report: to the top of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

From Mr Yu:

6/27
Today is a tale of heaven and earth. The hotel we are staying in Lijiang is the traditional Chinese courtyard style with us occupying yard #5. Each room is facing each other and has a view of the distant mountains or of a wild pond. Besides the cool feeling of inside a traditional Chinese residence, the rooms come with most, if not all, modern conveniences we have been spoiled to take for granted. The service is wonderful and the breakfast offered here has more options than many other hotels we have stayed in so far.

In the morning we first visited the Dongba Valley, a replica plaza of what life was like to the local Dongba people many years ago. There was little worth taking note except for a guy who climbed up tree bare-footed on a ladder made of knives with sharp edges. There were of course the usual assortment of shops selling tourist trinkets dotted by a few Tibetan yaks and peacocks waiting for paying customers to take photos with them. From there we drove for about 30 miles before we arrived at the base cable car station at the foot of the Jade Dragon Mountain. Due to safety concerns, we left Eu-k and LJ here. It was believed they had spent the time there waiting for us playing games or surfing the net using Mr. Yu's 3G-enabled ipad. We rode the cable car up to the elevation of 4512 above the sea level. From there we had to hike for about 1/5 of a mile (more than 300 steps up) to reach the point of 4636 meters (about 16000 feet). There we were in close contact with the year-around snow and glacier. It was foggy for a few minutes but the wind would blow the clous away to reveal a stunning scenery of mountain peaks glistening with snow and ice. The white clouds were furiously rolling underneath our feet.

It was hard to put how we felt in words. It was absolutely worthy of the long ride up, of our shortness of breath, of the headaches, and of having to fork over ¥95.00 for each of us to switch the lower cable car that had been originally booked to the second highest cable car in Asia.
Rachel and Zosha inside a cable car cabin going up.

We had a lousy lunch at he foot of the mountain and then proceeded to tour a place called the Blue Moon Valley. In this valley some pools were created to contain beautifully colored water, but we could tell this was man-made. Here we saw more tourists swarming the trails. Between holding up umbrellas and waiting forever for the cable cars with hundreds of other tourists some of whom tended to budge in in total contempt of the waiting line, we decided this was not worth of our time all.

So we concluded this tour early and got back to our cozy hotel rooms by 3:30 p.m..
We used portions of the fundraising money for the lift cable car upgrade. LJ and Eu-k will get the cash reimbursement because they did not go up with the cable cars.

Here is a video of a group of students from Stonybrook University, with their professor, as they ascend Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the cable cars and walking to the top. I don't think the weather was as good for them as it was for our group!


Additional links that may be of interest:
The travel writer Bruce Chatwin wrote an article for the New York Times in 1986 that brought international attention to Lijiang through his account of the botanist Dr. Joseph Rock who studied the incredibly rich and diverse plant life of the mountain. He tells how Rock's eccentric book about his time among the Naxi people captured the imagination of poet Ezra Pound while he was in a mental hospital. He also writes movingly of how the village survived the terrible destruction of the Cultural Revolution. {You'll note he uses the old pinyin conventions of spelling, so Lijiang is spelled Li Chiang, and the Naxi people are called Nakhi.}

A more recent visitor to Lijiang who has written an equally fascinating account of his time there is Michael Palin (yes, of Monty Python). You can read his travel tales here. Note that you will have to click on "next" to continue reading the account, as it is spread out over several pages. His tells of meeting Xuan Ke, the leader of the Naxi orchestra who was sent to labor in a tin mine for 22 years, andof the concert he attended. Lijiang's millenial history of cultural transformations and convulsion is a long one. This video has excerpts of of the concert. Xuan Ke is the man who speaks in the blue robe.