Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang Tang - 游记攻略 - 8264户外手机版
本帖最后由 TREKer 于 2010-11-24 18:51 编辑
Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang Tang
Mr YANG Liusong, a Chinese who just finished the first solo traverse over Chang Tang by cycling from west to east in recorded human history, shared his stunning Expedition with all of us through the forum 8264 http://bbs.8264.com/thread-512349-1-1.html . In order to share his legendary journey with those who cannot read Chinese, I translate his story to English here, which has been approved by Mr YANG Liusong. Hope you guys enjoy it.
为了让杨同学的传奇能让全世界的
驴友分享，俺决定把杨同学的帖子翻译成英文。为了避免麻烦，俺先来个免责声明：
1。杨同学不认识俺，也没有授权俺，如果他说不要翻译了那俺就随时终止；
2。俺没有商业目的，译版版权归杨同学，俺啥也不要，也不承担法律责任；
3。没有杨同学授权，不敢擅自发在国外网站，发在原帖处，荣誉归8264；
4。俺英语水平有限，欢迎指正，欢迎转贴。
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-11-24 11:25 编辑
Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang Tang
By Yang Liusong
It has been three months since I traversed the unpopulated region in the Great Chang Tang. There are many like-minded asking me about it. I now present this thread to briefly tell everybody about my journey.
The starting point of this traverse was from the highest peak of the western part of the Tibetan plateau, Jieshan Daban, and the day was April 20, 2010. I was heading eastward passing Bungdag Co, Yanghu Co, Rola Co, and Kangzhagri Mountain, which crossed over the desolate region from west to east. The journey continued northward to enter the unpopulated area of Altun Mountains, through Hoh Xil Mountains, Kunlun Mountains, Whale lake, ..., finally met some people by the Aqqikkol Hu and then arrived in Huatugou by vehicle three days later and that day was July 5. It had been 77 days in total. I had been all alone 74 days after leaving Jieshan Daban until arriving in Aqqikkol Hu, which was about 1400km and about four months.
[The Great Chang Tang] In Tibetan, "Chang Tang" means northern empty wilderness while narrowly, means unpopulated region in northern part of Tibet. However, it actually indicates all of the no man's land in northern. The great Chang Tang includes desolate places in Northern Tibet, Hoh Xil, Alun Mountains, and Kunlun Mountains, which are interconnected to form the unique and super empty wilderness in the world. Only because Hoh Xil is the most known name, most people just think this vast land is equivalent to Hoh Xil. In reality, Hoh Xil is only a small piece of the Great Chang Tang both administratively and geologically.
The Great Chang Tang, the last land to chase your freedom and dream.
The route that I traversed:
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-11-1 21:49 编辑
Foreplay
I arrived in Tibet in the early March, a couple of troubles bothered me. The brand new plug got its positive and negative wrongly connected; the rivets of my rucksack easily got broken from now and again; and a multi-functional charger got damaged and so on. Riding my bike to Ngari for warming up of this journey, lost my rucksack but later got it back; lost my camera bag and got it back later again, and finally lost a big bicycle pannier in the street of Gyangze town under the eyes of police, including clothes, solar panel and so on.
Without much choice, I returned to Lhasa to adjust all the stuff I would need in the wilderness. Then I begged some luck by going to Nyingchi to enjoy the blossoms of peach trees and to take a hot spring bath. I even had the privilege to enjoy time with ten girls in the hot spring. I felt my bad luck had all gone and then returned to Lhasa again to prepare going to Ngari. I did not expect that I was cheated on by some hustler and lost some money and delayed my schedule for a week. I had to find a car myself quickly to Nagri. However, I lost the tool for fast-parting my rear wheel on my way to Nagri, where was a remote area in Tibet and nowhere to buy the tool. Even if there was one in Lhasa it would take at least ten days for a special delivery service. I was lucky that my mate Duola asked a driver to bring the tool for me from Lhasa. I thought there should be no more nightmare like this but the nozzle of my brand new multi-fuel stove was broken. The next day I tried everywhere to weld them back together. The first three shops could not do the welding for copper. The fourth one said they could do it but could not guarantee a success. The engineer said it would be ten Chinese yuans if it was a success. I agreed. Just in seconds, my nozzle became crap in a flash of lightening. I was so upset. Again, Duola helped me by bringing her own MSR oil stove and Dingding's sleeping bag to Nagri. That was already April 16 and I did not have much time to waste. The following day I found a vehicle heading to Jieshan Daban.
The sand storm over Yarlung Zangbo River
A lonely peach tree blossoming in Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon
Natural hot spring in wild, me singing and drinking (photo by a friend of mine)
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-10-23 19:42 编辑
Day 1(April 20), 16km, Camping 5192m
It was a truck with a full load of iron wastes, arriving in Jieshan Daban at 6'o clock in the morning. It was still night and extremely cold and dark. Driver was not bothered to pop his head out of the driving cab. I climbed up on the top of the iron wastes, taking my bicycle down. In a hurry, I punched my old water bag. Fortunately I had another MSR water bag given by a friend of mine otherwise I would definitely fail without even starting my journey. For the first time for me to set up the brand new tent in strong, cold winds. It would be impossible to do so if the tent was not a whole piece. Extremely cold outside, about -15C, might be lower than that, I put my head into the sleeping bag but was nearly suffocated to death, honestly. The smell of Dingding's sleeping bag was, lol, so extraordinary.
I woke up around 11 o'clock. There were still strong winds outside so that I had to use my bodyweight to keep the tent in place. At the time when I just started to cook and eat, four patrolling soldiers approached me. To their surprise someone, in this season, camped in Jieshan Daban. I was so nervous and afraid they were the people to block my journey because I was caught and deported from the desolate land last year. Luckily the four soldiers did not know my destination and were very kind to me. After they left, I immediately packed my stuff and pushed my bike into the depths of the unpopulated area just in case anything unexpected happened.
The bike was very heavy due to the provisions and hard to control. There was even a quite small hill that I had to remove my bike panniers to get over it. This really struck me because this happened even the path was still the hardship one at the moment and I could not imagine what I would do once I entered the uncertain, endless wilderness. Until now I had not met anyone, even the nomadic pastoralists. I remembered there were quite a few of them roaming at the edge of the northern Tibetan plateau last year. All of these indicated it was not the good pasture season in such low temperature and strong winds. Around 16km there was a sheep cote, where I passed it last year, east of Lungmu Co. I was exhausted at this point so that I decided to camp in here and to rest my head. After arranging tent everything I went out to look for the wetland discovered by Duola and Liumeng last year. I was determined to find it.
There were many hot springs in the wetland which were underground water with a constant temperature. The wetland therefore became an ideal habitat for some fishes and weeds under such harsh weather, which was the very unique land feature of terrain in this over 5200m highland.
Perpetual snow in the valley blown to corn shape by strong winds
This wetland was discovered by Duola and Liumeng. The workers at a nearby mine did not know it and I too missed it last year
Underground water with a constant temperature, an ideal habitat for some fishes and weeds under such icy weather
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-10-23 19:57 编辑
感谢大伙儿支持和加分，不一一回复了。特别感谢多啦，希望能有机会一起喝酒吃肉。
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-10-23 16:15 编辑
Day 2 (April 21), 0km, Camping5192m
Blustering gale all night, up and down like ocean waves. The next day rather than continuing to travel, I stayed inside the sheep cote, hesitating and pondering over. Indeed, there were so many problems before this journey;I did not have sufficient physical preparation;the load had already reached its limitation; I still coughed a lot;the weather was so extreme and cold. All in all, I did not think this journey was well prepared and I did not have confidence in completing this journey mentally and physically. To do, or not to do, it was the question. Similarly I did not have confidence in my facilities, not knowing whether all of them would work functionally or not. The fact was one of the rivets got broken again and the front rack came loose. In the afternoon, I replaced all the rivets of the panniers with screws I had prepared before. This was an excellent job I had done which gave me no further troubles throughout my whole journey. I also re-adjusted the front rack. However I did not think it would definitely all right because I did not have a tool to do it. When the darkness descended,I made up my mind to continue my journey, which, of course, was not beyond any imagination.
Orchid-like weeds
Small springs everywhere, clear and chilly
A thin layer of ice covering the fresh spring water
