Come out of Seda and continue walking west along the Northern Sichuan-Tibet Line.
01
G317 Sichuan-Tibet Northern Line winter scene.
It was too cold, and all the migratory birds in the plateau lake Casa Lake disappeared.
The roads on the northern Sichuan-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of 4,800 meters are covered with gravel and dark ice. The endless alpine grasslands are hard, cold and desolate. The sun shines directly on the skin, but the temperature is minus 15 degrees. There were not many vehicles passing through. Before passing through a newly repaired tunnel, the police at the entrance checked the lights before letting us go. When we arrived at the exit of the tunnel, we were stopped by the police again. It turns out that the tunnel has a 30-kilometer limit. We were speeding, and they reminded us to drive safely. . The weather is extremely cold, but the traffic police in Ganzi Prefecture are still doing their duty. Thinking of the staff on duty at the Changpinggou Scenic Area of Siguniang Mountain who drove to the scene late at night to remind us who were watching the Milky Way, who said that winter on the plateau is very cold, it is hard to disagree.
02
After passing through the alpine grassland with an average altitude of more than 4,500 meters, we finally arrived at the Yaqing Wujin Zen Forest - Yaqing Temple for short. It takes 7 hours to drive from Seda to the remote depths of the Western Sichuan Plateau, a pure land far away from the hustle and bustle. Yaqing Temple is the place with the largest number of female monks in the world.
Juem is the honorific title for a superior woman in Tibetan. They live around an endless river, and their life is extremely simple and difficult. The "matchbox" sized huts on the hillside, commonly known as potato houses, are the places where the ascetics spend hundreds of days in winter practicing hard. The potato houses can only accommodate one person sitting, and the difficult conditions first test the will of the ascetics. There were very few tourists, and when they took pictures of them, they just shook their heads slightly, lowered their heads shyly and ducked to the side. Potato houses all over the mountains and plains, colorfully displayed in the sunshine, dot the solitary mountains on the plateau.
The temple hall is brightly lit and solemn. Thousands of lamas are reciting scriptures and holding some kind of ceremony, which is like the magic academy in "Harry Potter".
Juem took advantage of the good weather to wash clothes by the river
03
After visiting Yaqing Temple, we returned to the Sichuan-Tibet Northern Line National Highway 317 and returned.
We walked slowly east on the Sichuan-Tibet Northern Line and rested for one night in Ganzi. Although the name is Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the state capital is not in Garze County, but in Kangding at the foot of Zheduo Mountain. Kangding is the core city in western Sichuan and the seat of the original provincial capital of Xikang Province.
Walking through Daofu and Luhuo, passing through Bamei, we saw Yala Snow Mountain again in Tagong Grassland. After passing Tagong this time, we did not take the direction of Xinduqiao as in previous years. Instead, we headed directly from Tagong Grassland to Kangding Airport. Today’s plan is to go over Zheduo Mountain and reach the top in Kangding. The weather is fine, so we start from Ya Walking at the foot of Laxue Mountain.
See Gonggar from Kangding Airport, altitude: 4000 meters, straight-line distance: about 65 kilometers, direction: north to south
Zheduo mountain pass, mist rising
04
Stayed for one night in Kangding. At night, while walking around Kangding Bridge, snowflakes started to fall. The next morning I saw it was snowing heavily. All vehicles in Kangding are equipped with anti-skid chains and drive carefully and slowly on the streets. Without snow chains, it seems that today’s plateau road from Kangding to Ya’an will slide slowly. I saw the announcement that the expressway from Ya'an to Luding was opened to traffic at 6 pm on December 31, 2017. It seems that we can't make it. It's okay to go over Erlang Mountain again. In the future, the entire expressway will be opened to traffic, and there will be a chance to go over Erlang Mountain again. Just less. Indeed, in the service area of Erlang Mountain, many vendors stayed at their posts despite the severe cold. They said they would sell some yak jerky and other stocks while the highway was not open to traffic.
Climbing out of the snowfall area at a speed of 20 kilometers, the altitude dropped by 1,000 meters. There was no snow on the Dadu River, so we were out of the Tibetan area.
Coming down from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, we climbed up to Baiguotan Village in Jianshi, Enshi, in the eastern extension of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and caught up with the grand pig-killing banquet held by Jianshi’s farm family. I walked thousands of kilometers and wandered around the Yangtze River Basin.
On the New Year's Eve trip in 2018, Seda and Yaqing Temple bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. I hope time will not grow old, old friends will never be separated, and a happy new year.