After my first near miss, I made sure to get off my bus in the right location this time around. From Qiaotou, I was headed into the Tiger Leaping Gorge, a fantastic, deep gorge in the north of Yunan province, very close to Tibet. In the village, I purchased an entry ticket to the nature reserve within which the gorge lies. From here, I started searching out the entry to the "high trail" through the gorge as the low trail essentially follows a newly constructed road which shepherds through tour groups who don't have the time or desire to complete the two day hike. I had spoken with an Australian woman in Lijiang who had completed the hike, and she said the first hour or two were uphill, then the hike was not strenuous as it progressed through the gorge. Unfortunately, I didn't ask her about the entrance. After one false start down a creekbed, I found a paved stone path leading straight up the hill. Knowing the Chinese idea of wilderness adventure, I assumed I'd found the trail and started up at a quick clip.

After a hefty walk, I came into an opening where a small village in the hills had cleared some land for their agricultural terraces and offered some great views of the Five Fingers Mountain (a 5500 meter, five-peaked behemoth which serves as the backdrop of the entire gorge hike) looming behind thier community. After a quick break to slug some water, I continued through the village, where some painted arrows eventually led me to a house with the following painted on the door, "Knock on my door and you can have lunch with me. Afterwards I will show you the correct trail." Two things went through my head on seeing this. First, that some sneaky local had figured out a way to weasel a lunch out of hikers by leading them astray with false arrows. Second, that the "correct" trail must be the largest one leading out of the village. No other possibilities really occurred to me at the time, but I sure wasn't going to reward this fellow for leading me on a goose chase, and started off through the village on my own. As luck would have it, there was no one anywhere in the village, and arriving on the far side, I picked what seemed a heavily traveled trail continuing up the mountain. After another half-hour or so of hard walking, I collapsed by the trail to assess my situation. I'd been walking uphill for a couple of hours and was exhausted, but didn't seem to be getting very close to any sort of gorge. My good sense had inspired me to leave my guide book in Lijiang to save weight, and I had no map of the trail whatsoever, so I was left with only one course of action. On I pushed.

After another half hour or so, I came out at a second village in the hills, just as fantastically located as the first. For some reason, this town really depressed me because I'd been walking so hard, for so long and here was this whole community with the trail as their only connection to the world below. Color me naieve. Sauntering through town I got some really amazed looks, which was a bit off-putting considering 20-30,000 hikers come through here every year. I expected to see a few people selling water or something, but all I got was blank stares and whispers. As I headed out of town after a local woman, some guys called after me and implied I was going the wrong direction. When one fellow asked me for my map, I told him I didn't have one (perhaps a bit more smugly than I should). He indicated approximately where I should be going and offered to show me the way, but I could tell that he was quite busy digging in what looked like a water line, and didn't want to take him away from it. Also, I didn't much feel like having a guide the rest of the way. Addmittedly, the trail to this point had been reasonably poorly marked, but most of the way it seemed fairly obvious which way to go. I set out in the correct direction with a hearty thanks to my guides.

The trail out of town had been used pretty heavily by livestock recently, which seemed reasonable if folks have been riding horses through the gorge. A bit down the trail, though, I discovered that in fact the usage was from loggers dragging trees using oxen. Again, it seemed strange to have folks doing this on such a heavily used trail, but who was I to argue. Shortly after leaving town my trail ended in much larger trail which I took to be the appropriate Tiger Leaping Gorge Trail, and was very relieved to have a nice view across the way. My relief was tempered, though, by the realization that I was still a hell of a long way away from the gorge. The hike was meant to be about 20 kilometers, and I guessed I had walked well over 10 already. Hmmm.

Following this new trail around for a while, it started getting smaller and smaller. Trees and weeds were growing into the trail, the way was significantly less clear. Eventually, it degenerated into what appeared to be little more than animal trails, entirely covered by fallen leaves and pine needles. When my trail started going straight downhill, I knew that I was in trouble yet again. Based on my one good look at the countryside, though, I knew I needed to continue going around at approximately the same elevation to get into the gorge. I did what you should never do and left the trail. Eventually I popped out in an opening which had been fairly recently logged and could see a powerline far below me, leading up hill. I decided my best bet was to drop down and follow the powerline. Eventually, it should lead to one of the many guesthouses which are supposedly all along the trail (I had yet to see one). On my way down, though, I was saved yet again by a clear, well-worn trail leading in the right direction. I set off at a quick clip since it looked like at most two more hours of sunlight.

This trail went fairly clear for a while before splitting up in a number of directions. I followed one which seemed most likely (and well traveled) and stopped in what looked like a newly built cave house. I looked sort of like a fort I would have built as a child. Here I was confronted face-to-face with the realization which had been knawing at my mind for hours. I was well and truly lost. Seeing a newly built cave house did not just cause this to dawn on me, however, it was the gun-wielding owner who came stomping out to inspect this crazy-looking foreigner who just happened to walk into his home. In my limited experience, I've found gun-wielding locals to be a sign of bad things to come. Not surprisingly, this fellow didn't speak English, but I guess he knew basically what I needed. I doubted I was the first hiker to get lost in this direction, especially since the trail was frequently fracturing into four or five directions and for my money all but impossible to follow. He took me out to yet another seemingly well-traveled trail (I was relieved to have wandered off only a short distance) then he started to pantomime that I was meant to go over the ridge and drop down below. This wasn't good news to me as I was fully exhausted. After walking for about five hours, most of those uphill, I'd drunk most of my water and had not eaten much at all. Still, if he said it was the way, I had no reason to doubt and started off.

About ten minutes later, this trail too had degraded to nothing and the old guy started to whoop and wail like crazy far behind me. I was genuinely worried I had been roped into some strange "Hunt the white-devil" game and began looking around with a wild eye. Instead it seemed he was just calling in his goats. They were the cause of all the trails through the woods which were impossible to follow. After twenty minutes tracking dead-ends, I took stock. I had at most one hour of sunlight, some matches, a pocketknife and some clothes. I was not looking forward to a night in the woods, and was thinking of crashing with the crazy goat herder in his horridly porous accomodations. In a feat of possible stupidity, I tried one last trail, and it started to go straight up. Using the adrenaline produced by the thought of a night with Jiang the Man Hunter, I managed to scramble up the mountain. At the top, just as the guy had implied, the trail went straight down. I started half-jogging down, knowing that I was far from out of the woods, quite literally. After a bit, the trail started to peter out. I saw a rockslide and climbed out on it to get a look. Down below me a ways, I saw what was, in my eyes, a superhighway. The type of trail which truly could handle the number of people who supposedly did the reckless trip in which I was currently embroiled. There was no doubt I was staring at the actual trail...now I just had to get there. Climbing down the rather unsteady rockpile, I picked my way down and joyously was delivered onto the trail which was strewn with arrows and advertisements on the rocks for all of the guesthouses. After a harrowing six hours of backcountry hiking, I had managed to get back to the actual trail.

I shot down the trail as the sun was setting and throwing a gorgeous red hue on Five Fingers Mountain, and found a guesthouse just as dusk was ending. In the guesthouse were two other hikers, one of whom was an Israeli who I had met on my first train trip from Hong Kong to Beijing, over two months earlier! Its a small world. After comparing stories, it turns out the paved trail I had started out on was not the right trail after all. I hadn't taken a single step on the Tiger Leaping Gorge Trail the entire day, until I dropped down from the ridge. They were jealous of my adventure, but I gave an involuntary shudder at how close I'd been to disaster.

The following morning we finished the hike together (the guesthouse was only about three hours down the actual trail) in a few hours and I hopped a ride back to Lijiang. It had been an eventful couple of days since I'd left, and I was glad to be heading north to Chengdu the following day to start my long slog westward. The coldness awaits.