Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang Tang - 游记攻略 - 8264户外手机版
算是俺到目前为止见过的中国户外徒步最强贴了。加油翻，到时候发到国外的论坛，记得把地址发来
此贴绝对是为国争光。
差点儿没找到俺自己的帖子，原来变色了。多谢各位鼓励。
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-11-1 18:01 编辑
Day 10 (April 29), 16km, Camping 5141m
In the morning, I walked around the north bank of the Pur Co， where it were continuous ups and downs sprinkled with light yellow sprouts across the sparse grassland. The wild yaks clustered into small groups. All of a sudden, there was a group of five of them running towards me, blowing a huge cloud of dust with the power of thunderbolts, I believed that anyone who did not know the characters of the wild yaks must be frightened to death under such circumstances. The fact was the wild yaks in groups never injured people. Rushing to you just to show you its territory. When they approached people at certain distance, they would turn sharply and run away, and then stopped somewhere high to stare at you. You can not imagine that the wild yaks were very cautious animals compared with its almost one ton of weight. Their first reaction, when meeting people, was to raise their tails, the front hooves rubbing against the ground, the horns pointing forward, the eyes redden, and the long body hair shaking, all of which showed their determination to fight. This was the warning sign that you should retreat. However, you should realise that this was only a gesture that they were afraid of you and wanted to scare you away. The thing was that if you were not afraid of them and moved forward, they would run away in no time. There were only some mad yaks attacking people, which was really rare to happen. In Chang Tang, an experienced driver know that it is very dangerous to pass directly from two or three lonely wild yaks. They always tried to avoid confronting them directly. If this was not possible, they would lit a cigarette, smoking, to wait until the yaks walked away themselves. This was because the wild yaks really could attack vehicles, which was not completely rumors. I once asked them why I had not been attacked. They told me that because my bike was so small they would not be bothered to attack it. My own experience was that approaching a wild yak very slowly, do not look into its eyes, and ignored what it was doing. As long as it moved forward a little bit, just stop and give the yaks a little bit of time to think. Because if you forced the yak, it could be the most dangerous animal in the world and nothing could stop them killing. Even a gunshot could not kill it but only left a small hole in its skin. In the past, the nomads living near this land would use yaks' skin as chopping board which was very much endurable.
At noon, I lost my balaclava, which was brand new and I had never used it once. I could not be bothered to go back to find it. This resulted in that I had to have my fleece hat day and night in the rest of my journey, which did not provide fully protection from the sun in the plateau. But somehow I was all right, perhaps because my skin is similar to those of yaks, lol. At around half past one, I found a deserted Jeep, upside down. I felt it could be there for years and it could be the vehicle of some illegal hunters. Nowadays, we have wildlife conservation reserves in Chang Tang and the animals here are well protected. However, some people kills the wild yaks to sell them as the domestic yak's meat. In general, it is worth 10,000 Chinese yuans for a single wild yak. Therefore many people take the risk to make money. They often enter the unpopulated areas to hunt and their activities can reach 200 km in diameter. This is why the wild yaks in the deep wilderness are less afraid of people than those at the boundaries of the Chang Tang region.
There once happened that a wild yak mother revenged its baby's murder in the Altun mountains. Its horns pierced the killer's chest and held his body over its head for more than ten days, which was very touching.
Around 3pm, I walked out of the Pur basin. The next point was Hong Shan Daban and then it was the Yueya Hu by the Toze Gangri. At this time I found a vehicle track from south to north. I checked over but could not find the way where they had gone. I took my map, GPS, and compass, climbing up a small hill to estimate the location of Hong Shan Daban. The mountain was very round and it was hard to find the mountain pass. After determining the location of the Daban, I moved straightforward. When I passed a messy grassland, I saw something that I was reluctant to see: more than hundreds of wild yaks' head scattered all over, which was definitely the scene of the illegal hunting. After that it was a very long ancient river bed with soft sand slowly rising until the foot of the mountain.
There are some spines on the surface of the tongues of wild yaks, which are used by nomads in this area as combs. They use them from their teens to the time when their hair becomes silver.
The deserted Jeep, could be left by illegal hunters years ago
The slaughtered wild yaks with the wheel size heads. Some of the skulls were chopped into half. Why was that? Could be taken away for making combs?
My camp at the foot of the Daban under the lingering golden rays of the setting sun. Tomorrow's weather must be wonderful, I reckoned
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-10-26 21:19 编辑
Day 11(April 30)， 20.4km, Camping 5120m
The surface of the road leading to Hong Shan Daban was very hard, most of them were small rocks, sort of gravels, plus a quite long downhill slope, I pushed my bike more than 20km for the first time after Luxing Hu. The mountain pass was quite flat, just like a broad ridge, it was 5256m above the sea level. Upon arriving at the pass, Toze Gangri of 6356m was in my sight clearly, very much round and there was no back bone like normal snow covered mountains. Most of the snow mountains in Chang Tang looked like this probably it was due to the geological movements. There were quite a few chirus or Tibetan antelopes in the valley but I was not interested in this kind of animals anymore after I witnessed a large scale of migration of such animals last year elsewhere.
The herbivorous animals here are very quick to reach its original size of the population, such as wild yaks, chirus, Tibetan gazelle, pika, and marmot. When you go into the depths of the Chang Tang, you could hardly be surpised by the sudden appearance of the chirus because they are so common in here. At this time of year, the chirus have already male-female parted. You could see many pregnant female chirus but hardly see any males. According to recent research, Zonag Co is not the only lake for breeding. There are at least four of them in the whole Chang Tang. Zonag Co, Tuzi Hu, Heishi Beihu, and another lake I can not remember. I think there must be more than four of them and most of the populations do not migrant long way like most people used to think. They generally migrant from south to north between Central Mountains and Kunlun Mountains.
The chirus looks very timid but are very curious about outside world. They are not really afraid of people, particularly in the depth of the Chang Tang. The nearest distance we can approach is about 30m. They just stare at you calmly and think who you are and why you move so slow. They would run in front of you. Look like they are afraid of you but the fact is they are playing with you. A man's own character shapes his fortune. This is of course suit for animals too. The chirus are the typical one. They have a super speed and a pair of sharp antlers. If they are crazy, three of them work together could easily kill a wolf. But as you might have known, their antlers are just for fighting to mate with females.
Down the Daban there was a very steep and straight road, I tried to ride the bicycle but ended up with falling over. The front rack came loose and one of the pannier flew into valley. The foot of the mountain was the Yueya Hu covered by ice, which was a lake full of heavy metal elements. Along the lake bank there were many stark rocks very much weathered, lining up just like castles or houses. This made me stop to investigate what they were from time to time, I did understand they were just rocks though but they were so real like the figures of real people. On of them even made me hide in a ditch, observing them again and again using my binoculars. There were also many black volcanic rocks. All in all, the features of this area were really unusual.
Passed over the Yueya Hu, it was an endless ancient lake bed. What my GPS showed was this area was a big lake like tentacles. I looked around, it was endless wilderness without a piece of ice and a drop of water. Roughly, I estimated this lake bed was about 1200 square meters. I had to tell you that Chang Tang was a place where there was no high-resolution map. The marks in the map often were some kind of memory. Just like this ancient lake bed under my feet, may be it was full of water a few years ago. Who knows. Pushing the bike in such an endless lake bed was very easy to get lost. My mind was in a chaotic status too.
The migration of the animals, photo taken last year
本帖最后由 treker 于 2010-10-26 21:06 编辑
The road rising up to the Daban, full of gravels, very hard, ideal for pushing your bike
The Yueya Hu gazed at by the round and smooth Toze Gangri. At a glimpse, could you tell which was mountain, which was cloud?
Ancient lake bed. The white stains were the alkali, look like ice.
