Lonely Planet isn't helping - Sichuan anyone?

[yonitabonita]

Hi folks,

I've literally spent 6 hours on Lonely Planet's Thorntree forum and am finding it hard to distinguish my bum from my head now.

I'm nicking off out of BJ for the summer. I thought I wanted to go to Yunnan to do some hiking but now I'm not sure. I'm scared of crowds.. (ha! and I live in Beijing).

The ideal break would involve:

1. Spectacular scenery.

2. Loads of fresh air and exercise.

3. Minimal encounters with crowds of people. Small groups are ok, as are nomadic tribes.

4. Some contact with horses.

5. Hikes up to a week long.

Constraints:

1. I only want to be away for about 6 weeks.

2. I'm an experienced hiker but not an experienced cyclist

I'm not wedded to Sichuan. From what I've read though, it seems a lot less touristy than Yunnan. The little I've read suggests that Qinghai has a lot of natural beauty to offer. Any personal experiences folks?

It's always hard to gauge. One person's 'spectacular' is another's 'pretty but not amazing'.

So, as some sort of reference, I'd regard the following places as 'spectacular':

1. Just about all of Iceland, especially Landmannalaugar.

2. Karakoram highway, Xinjiang, Karakoram Ranges, Pakistan

3. Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

4. Buchegi Mountains in autumn, Transylvania, Romania

5. Cuillin Ranges, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Can anyone help?

Thanks a mill,

Y

Please - can anyone help?

[Guest realmayo]

Hopefully you’ll get lots of answers here but you could also consider this mailing list, they may help: http://tinyurl.com/fs6wo

[Ninja]

You might want to consider Gonggashan in western Sichuan. I went there a year ago and did some trekking and found it pretty spectacular. There are some photos on Flickr if you want to get an idea of what to expect. Head to Kangding and make your way to the mountain from there.

[Long Zhiren]

Here's a website with lots of good ideas. Of course, toggle Sichuan to get results for that province.

http://www.wildchina.com/explore/home.asp

If you've got tons of disposable money, you can even join their tours. However, I find their summary of suggested hiking-heavy tours to be a great list of outdoors ideas.

Mount Gongga is mentioned.

So is Jiuzhaigou, Yading, Wanglang, Mt Siguniang, the road to Tibet, etc.

I just began writing them with interest in their trips.

Also check Hunan province, especially Zhangjiajie. That caught my eye.

[yonitabonita]

Thanks all for your responses.

Realmayo- I tried to sign onto that list. I managed to register for an account and password then didn't know where to go from there. How do you a) make a posting B) see other people's postings?

It's probably really obvious, but I'm a technological moron.

cheers,

y

[roddy]

The Oriental List doesn't maintain an archive, on the basis that information changes so quickly it isn't worthwhile, I think. It's entirely email based, so you make a posting to an email address (which will be in the information you received on signing up) and once the moderator (who pays great attention to keeping the discussion on topic) has checked it it goes out to all the members, who reply in the same fashion. All postings are moderated, so don't expect an instant response.

You might also want to look at Bike China for ideas. They run (hoodathunkit?) bike tours which I know you aren't looking at, but a look at their tours may give you some ideas on places to go to. The owner Peter Snow is based in Chengdu and they have 18 tours listed under Sichuan.

Roddy

[wushijiao]

So is Jiuzhaigou, Yading, Wanglang, Mt Siguniang, the road to Tibet, etc.

I went to Siguniangshan just three weeks ago. You can do all lot of hiking, or horseback riding, and get away from people. I think it fits most of your criteria.

1. Spectacular scenery.

2. Loads of fresh air and exercise.

3. Minimal encounters with crowds of people. Small groups are ok, as are nomadic tribes.

4. Some contact with horses.

5. Hikes up to a week long.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass to get to, which is why it's not crowded (unlike Emei and Le Shans). On our way there, next to the town of 卧龙 (famous for the pandas), a bridge collapsed because some careless people were doing a construction project to close to the road and thus dug underneath the land that was holding up the bridge. So, we had to wait for about five hours until another bus came to pick us up from the other side of the bridge. Anyway, the point is, I think the western part of Sichuan is very beautiful and fairly unexplored, but give yourself some time. It takes a whole day of travel to get there, and so it probably is a good idea to not go to fast from one place to another.

We only had two days there, which really wasn't enough.

[yonitabonita]

I've managed to sign on to the Oriental List. It's been exceptionally helpful, and though response times aren't as quick as Thorntree, the wait is at least in my opinion, worth it. Less noise, less irrelevant info, fewer little angry people lurking about. So, in short, thanks folks for your ideas, recommendations, and help.

Y

[chengdude]

Less noise, less irrelevant info, fewer little angry people lurking about.

As a reasonably frequent commenter on LP's forums, I won't take that personally.

To a great degree, your question has been asked innumerable times on the Thorn Tree, so that could be one reason there's no great surge of information forthcoming.

Crowds, hah! Get ready because Sichuan's got loads of 'em during the summer holidays.

As for "amazing", I think the Daocheng/Yading area would fit the bill, especially if you can organize a trek through Muli and into Yunnan (ending up around Lugu Lake and onwards to Lijiang). Siguniangshan is a nice idea because of its relative proximity to Chengdu. It's a nice mountain area, but certainly falls a little short in comparison to your list. A trek around Gonggashan, technically China's tallest mountain, is another possibility. Jiulong, to the south of that area is still another. One other choice you'd have is going northwest and doing some sort of route from Ganzi into Qinghai.

This site hasn't been freshened for some time, but it's still a great resource:

ChinaBackpacker

[Guest realmayo]

glad it was useful yonitabonita.