Some people like to chase the sea, while others like to climb mountains.
And some people like to dive into glaciers.
On the vast ice field of mountains with no end in sight, a man and a dog are walking forward...
This is the daily life of Wang Xiangjun, a Chinese glacier explorer from Guang'an, Sichuan.
Born in 1990, he started exploring these unknown glaciers seven years ago.
He calls himself: "Tibetan Adventure King".
This name may seem unfamiliar to you.
But if you like adventure and nature, or even like watching short videos, then you have basically heard or seen those glacier videos he shot that have exploded on the Internet.
Because, it is so beautiful.
The man in the camera with messy hair and a mustache who looks a bit unkempt is Wang Xiangjun.
It's like this that he makes people feel "very down-to-earth".
He has traveled to Yunnan, Guangxi, Tibet and other places.
I have gone to glaciers and underground caves deep in the snowy mountains to explore, record and share. In this way, I can record another side of nature.
He is obsessed with glaciers.
It took me 7 years to take pictures of more than 70 glaciers and tell everyone: Global glaciers are gradually melting. I hope everyone will love nature.
On December 6, 2019, as a "Chinese folk glacier recorder" and protector, he was invited to give a speech at the United Nations Climate Conference.
Wang Xiangjun attending the United Nations Climate Conference. Picture/meditation and tranquility
One year later on December 20th.
While climbing the glacier, he accidentally fell into the waterfall of Yiga Glacier, and his life or death was uncertain.
It was not until December 26 that the news that had been circulating online for several days was confirmed - the "Tibetan Adventure King" was killed.
The news of the death was posted on the Internet by his brother:
"My brother, your Lao Wang, will stay in his favorite waterfall forever... He has been obsessed with glaciers all his life and dedicated himself to glaciers. This is the best destination for him."
Just when we thought this terrible year of 2020 was about to end, we lost another "incomparably brave friend".
01
A young man who grew up in a poor village
"Love at first sight" with Glacier
Wang Xiangjun was born in 1990.
My hometown is in a village in a poor county in Guang'an, Sichuan.
There are only two to three hundred people in the village, and most of them are elderly. The educational conditions of that place have always been poor, and he also performed abnormally on the day of the college entrance examination ...
After the college entrance examination, he Went to Shenzhen "Conquer the world".
The place where Wang Xiangjun grew up. Picture/Cold Play Lab
At that time, his parents found him a job in a factory in Shenzhen, with a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan, including food and accommodation. But the boring and unskilled work quickly bored him and he quit the job.
After that, he went to Foxconn to work as a floor mop, earning 900 yuan a month, and left after working for 9 days.
From then on, he started working part-time while traveling.
This kind of life is unstable for others, but Wang Xiangjun enjoys it.
He likes landscapes.
The first place that comes to mind is Guilin, Guangxi.
I bought a ticket to Guilin and spent my days and nights obsessed with the mountains and waters of Guilin, living a semi-wandering life.
Along the Li River.
In Guilin, he experienced the joy of traveling.
But I soon got tired of it.
He felt that there had been such beautiful scenery as Guilin’s mountains and rivers in the world for a long time, and there must be even more unknown beauty hidden there.
He began to move toward the mysterious Yunnan in the southwest.
It was also this time that connected him with those majestic glaciers.
In the distance is Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
The reason is that when he was working in Yunnan, he was accidentally attracted by an advertisement for Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
The majestic and beautiful Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the advertisement immediately entered his heart.
As a southerner, he has never seen snow many times.
He wants to go, but the tickets for the cable car up the mountain are very expensive. The ticket costs 200 yuan and the cable car costs 160 yuan. For him who has been working part-time and has no savings...
It's really too expensive.
But he didn't give up.
Find the route and go straight to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain without any other thoughts.
It takes locals almost ten hours to climb from an altitude of 2,000 meters to 4,500 meters. Wang Xiangjun, who grew up in the mountains, only spent 8 hours.
After hiking up to the glacier layer at an altitude of 4,500 meters, he saw the glaciers that were usually hidden deep in the mountains.
Glaciers are a "strange world" composed of ice blocks of various colors and shapes.
Due to the different elements and compositions inside, it will show various colors after being irradiated by the sun.
This was Wang Xiangjun’s first impression of the glacier.
02
Beautiful glacier
I hope you won't embarrass him
The glacier is beautiful.
But behind this beauty, there is also a very dangerous side: It is inaccessible, wild animals often appear, and avalanches and collapses may occur at any time.
Moreover, the geographical environment surrounding the snow-capped mountains is very complex.
Even if you are a native-born local, even if you go up the mountain to dig mushrooms, you still need to team up, let alone step into the glaciers that not many people have been to.
But he dared.
Picture 1/Glacial caves melt during the day and freeze at night, forming caves like stalactites; Picture 2/Icicles with strange shapes. Picture/Wang Xiangjun
The cost of climbing the snow-capped mountains this time was to spend all the money I had.
But it was also after that time that Wang Xiangjun decided to leave pictures of these beautiful scenery that not many people had seen - he bought a digital camera worth more than 1,400 yuan and started taking pictures of glaciers.
When he told his friends about this experience, they were all scared! For his safety, I hope he will not go to the glacier alone again.
Those videos we see on short video platforms now.
As everyone knows, he has risked his life time and time again in exchange for it...In fact, he is also afraid, and he prays before setting off every time -"Don't encounter danger."
once having seen the best, the rest is not worthwhile looking.
He could not forget the snow-capped mountains, let alone the glaciers.
He set Tibet as his destination after Yunnan and began to concentrate on photographing glaciers. This time, Tibet became his "home" after wandering around the world.
In Medog, he also picked up a dog and named it "Potato". ”.
Although we are accompanied by cold glaciers along the way, we also feel the warmth of "home".
03
A grassroots blogger’s road to “exploring glaciers alone”
on today’s social platforms.
At best, Wang Xiangjun can be considered a "grassroots blogger" - the simplest kind.
After sharing his own videos, he became more and more popular, but he was not affected by commercialism and still insisted on exploring those mysterious glaciers.
In his personal short video account, he wrote this signature:
"I just love nature and go deep into it. I just want to feel its beauty and energy, take photos and record it, and don't destroy it. When I leave there, nothing will be left there."
In one of the videos he shot.
Everyone has seen another side of "ice and snow".
It was also in this branch video that he began to explore and study glaciers bit by bit, and was no longer limited to its "beauty".
On the snow-capped mountains on the southern slopes of the Himalayas at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters, there are red azaleas all over the mountains and plains;
Deep in the inaccessiblesnowy mountains, there are various kinds of snow lotus. In summer, herdsmen will eat them as wild vegetables;
Soapstone, the raw material for making authentic Medogite pots, needs to be mined bit by bit;
In the midsummer of July, he dived into a natural blue ice cave that takes thousands of years to form, and saw the ultimate tranquility and magnificence inside ;
Millennium Blue Ice Cave.
After waiting for 10 days on the snow-capped mountains, I photographed the reflection of the Makalu Snow-capped Mountains in the water. It was so clean and transparent that it was unbelievable ;
Glaciers are not always cold. In summer, you can also swim in the melted lake formed after the glacier melts ;
A rare avalanche ice cave was discovered in the Kachin Glacier, as if you were in another mysterious "alien world" ;
A natural hot spring was discovered deep in the mountains of Tibet. can swim in it, soak in the hot spring, and admire the snow-capped mountains and his favorite glaciers...
What he didn't expect at all was.
At first, I simply shared my favorite glaciers.
Everyone liked it.
Fans began to leave him messages, asking what was in the video, and he answered them one by one.
Later, people left messages every day urging updates. If there is no update for a long time, everyone will know that he is exploring a certain mountain again.
If you want to use numbers to summarize his short and extraordinary life.
Just 1 person, 1 dog, 70 icebergs, 3.4 million fans...But the meaning of his life is far more exciting than these numbers.
Wang Xiangjun photographed the interior of glaciers and underground rivers in Kangma County, Tibet.
He walked alone countless times and visited and visited these beautiful scenery.
No matter how bad the weather is, how bad the road conditions are, or how dangerous the glacier is, it cannot stop his love for the glacier.
"Glaciers are inherently remote, and there will always be difficulties. If you are afraid of this or that, you will never reach it."
At the same time, some people did not understand his behavior.
Even his parents would tell him, "If you can't go to some places, don't force it."
But some people say that life is precious.
"Being able to end your life in something you love is the real life."
Wang Xiangjun felt that he was not wrong. It's just that this time, he didn't come back.
04
"Those roads back are melted"
Wang Xiangjun spent seven years climbing more than 70 glaciers in western China.
Use your camera to record how these glaciers slowly melt and disappear.
Wang Xiangjun said, "Almost every glacier I have ever visited is like this. It is very different from satellite images. You can't feel the speed of glacier degradation until you are on site."
Sometimes when you walk into a glacier, sometimes you come back for the second time, or just when you walk out of the glacier, you will find that the glaciers are melting.
Yes, he noticed subtle changes in the glacier.
Many times, he finally reached the glacier, only to find that the large white glacier area on the map had turned into pieces of broken ice floating on the lake .
The glaciers formed over millions of years began to melt and disappear.
The broken ice cubes seemed to be floating in tears.
"Those roads back melted away," he said.
Wang Xiangjun began to check the information, and some experts predicted:
“By 2050, a quarter of the world’s glaciers will disappear and sea levels will rise.
Some low-altitude areas will be submerged by rising sea levels, including Indonesia, Japan, Venice, Italy, and even Shanghai in East China. "
He started photographing more glaciers to show everyone his idea of protecting them.
Soon after, he received a call inviting him to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, hoping to share his observations of glaciers with the world.
After hanging up the phone, he was so excited that he spent the whole night sorting out the materials.
Because what he did was finally seen.
But I still can't believe it's true.
It wasn't until he sat at the venue that day that he was convinced it was true.
That day, he was wearing the same clothes as in the video, and had his messy hair trimmed, making him look more refreshed.
scientific research organizations in the world,
Almost all big data are used to analyze environmental and climate changes.
But many people, like Wang Xiangjun, can see and spread it with their own eyes, cannot do it, nor can they persist.
We have seen the melting and collapse of glaciers too many times in documentaries.
But such a scene almost never appears in front of ordinary people.
Therefore, it is difficult for us to intuitively feel——
What does melting glaciers mean?
Glaciers are the source of life.
Every lake was once formed drop by drop by glaciers.
It is really sad that the glaciers hidden quietly between the mountains eventually turn into flowing lakes.
Collapsing glaciers are a wake-up call for nature.
——
he's gone.
In his short video account, he has left more than 400 videos, showing people those "truths that cannot be ignored" .
Maybe many years later, the scene he saw at that time can only be seen in the video he shot.
It can't help but feel a bit regretful.
The glaciers he walked through are the logs of western China. The person who opened this historical diary for us is called Wang Xiangjun.
He is still the "Tibetan Adventure King".
Some people like to chase the sea, others like to climb mountains, and he likes to dive into glaciers. He has been obsessed with glaciers all his life and dedicated himself to glaciers. This may be the best place for him to end up.
Thank you for taking us to those inaccessible glaciers.
And this is a wake-up call from nature for us.
*Cherish life and do not imitate dangerous behaviors.
