September 15 (Tuesday) – Huang Long (Yellow Dragon)

This morning we took a three hour drive to Huang Long (Yellow Dragon Mountain). The road over the mountain was badly damaged in the May 2008 earthquake in the region and they were working on the entire length. It normally would take 1 ½ hours. The pass was at 13,000 feet. This was another of those uniquely Chinese adventures. We ran into only one Flagman on the way over and none on the dark and rainy return. There were workers everywhere and most of the road was one to one and a half lanes. Every so often we’d come across a tent or cluster of tents. The workers were living on the mountain in the tents during the construction. We also saw a number of people wielding brooms along the road…sweeping away the construction dirt and debris by hand. It appeared that the traffic had the right of way most of the time over the construction equipment. At one point we drove under the extended arm of a giant back hoe getting ready to do some digging. A little disconcerting.

On arriving in Huang Long we took the gondola to the top of the mountain. We had picked up oxygen bottles and a recommended Chinese herbal concoction to prevent getting mountain sickness. At the top of the gondola we walked 3 km to the Taoist shrine. The walk was on a newly constructed boardwalk that was fairly flat. From the shrine we walked up to a viewing stand where you could see the highlight of the scenic area…the Five Color Ponds. The ponds cover 20,000 square meters at an altitude of 11,200 feet. On Huang Long there are 650 ponds in colors of green, jade, yellow and others. The ponds are formed by walls made of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3). The calcium in the water is what gives most of the ponds their incredible blue color.
   Video in a new window, Multi-Colored Pond
  

After oohing and aahing over the ponds we headed down the valley. And down. And down. And down…4 kilometers. Generally 4 km is not that big of a hike but this walk was mostly stairs with a few short (5-10’) stretches of flat boardwalk and occasional longer stretches of flat walking (maybe 50 – 100’). We saw workers on the mountain hauling bundles of boards that looked to be about 1 ½” to 2” thick, 8” wide and eight to 10 feet long. Each bundle usually contained 5 – 8 boards. And you could see that the workers were struggling. We also saw men hauling goods and merchandise up to the small shops scattered around the mountain. They usually had a stack of two or three cases of water bottles or sodas and various other boxes of mystery items.









On the walk down there were large stretches of yellow calcium deposits, sections of which looked like dragon scales and from the air looked like a dragon laying on the mountain side (hence the name – Yellow Dragon). We saw only four other Caucasians there. Five Chinese stopped us to get their picture taken with us.












On the way back we stopped for a dinner in a very non-touristy town…with an unexpected experience. The restaurant’s toilets were around the back in what at first looked like a promising building with tile walls in and around the entrance. However, the toilet itself was an open trench with three short walls built along it to provide some “privacy” in the “stalls”. Fortunately there was just enough light to help avoid whatever you needed to avoid but not enough light to actually see the condition of the trench. Thank heavens.

This stop has given us some of the most spectacular scenery on the trip so far, and at least comparable to any other trip we have taken.

Huanglong Album