Xinjiang, Tian Shan; Trip to Snow Lotus Peak

Does anybody know how to save a map as a file in Google maps? I couldn't figure it out so this link will have to do:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid...b5d96224&msa=0

I have been planning to and see Snow Lotus Peak (6627 m) for years, judging by it's location and photo's I saw in Google maps it might just be the most beautiful place in Xinjiang... Even surpassing places like Kanas Lake, Tian Chi, Nalati and Swan lake reserve... This summer I finally had a mate with a good bike and a licence, he wanted to take his sister along who came for a visit and he needed an epic destination so the idea for this trip was born. because 2 people would ride on his bike, my bike would take most of the luggage.

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The trip should take 6 days and the first stop would be Salimu hu, a high altitude lake in Bole county close to Yili...

My friend was riding a Qingqi 200 GY, I'm riding a Galaxy SUV 250. My friend has always been very positive about his bike, it seems to be powerful enough and well put together. I'm less enthusiastic about my bike, it's fun to ride, the amount of power is acceptable, it handles well when you want to get up a mountain, the suspension is mediocre, the fuel consumption is too high, the fuel tank is ridiculously small, the top speed was 110 km/h once but by now, if I try to push it beyond 100 it's literally out of breath... Still, I love the looks of it and as long as it doesn't leave me high and dry I simply love it... Both bikes were equipped with custom made luggage racks, ideal for some huge saddle bags... I further upgraded my bike with a windscreen, japanese made chain and xenon lights.

On the first day we didn't leave very early, in fact we were only on the road by noon... Todays goal was Salimu hu, a ride of about 450 km. The first part of the trip isn't the most beautiful part, it mainly follows the highway, which is being repaired at a lot of places, in the agricultural / industrial strip that separates the mountains of the Tian Shan from the Gurbantunggut desert in the north. As you ride along, there is always a beautiful view towards the south, snow capped mountains, most of them over 4000 m high... After Wusu, famous in Xijiang for it's beer, the industrial area comes to an end, and the landscape is mostly half desert

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My friend, in a previous attempt to ride to Salimu Hu on his own, tried to get there as quickly as possible... Going at maximum speed for hours turned out to be a bad idea... He basically blew up his engine which had to be transported back to Shihezi... Now, the engine's inerts, all being new, he didn't want to go too fast and regularly stopped to let his engine cool down... This slowed us down. Most of the time we were riding though we tried to stick to 80 km/h, that's what I do when I ride by myself as well... One of my other friends (Who is now doing a ride from Shihezi to Ulaan Bataar, the capital city of Mongolia, I'm looking forward to his ride report) also blew up his engine so I have become quite careful... I don't dare to push it too much over 80 for a longer period of time...

I had calculated before that my bike, on a full tank (about 8 liters) would get me a bit over 160 km. However, in the middle of the desert, my engine died... I also found before that if I turn the fuel gage up, I should get an additional 25 km's... Too bad, maybe there was only 10 km left in there and I was out of fuel... Here it comes in handy to not ride alone, I could get some juice from my friends tank in order to make it to the next gasoline station...

So I learned my lesson: Time to fill up the jerry can in the saddlebags... Holy shit, what?:eek2: The fuel just came straight out of the saddlebags... The plastic jerrycan had just cracked right open... So I learned my lesson: Don't use f%@#ing plastic jerry cans for fuel... Thank god I firmly packed my sleeping bag in plastic bags, or else I could have thrown it away... Luckily solid metal jerry cans were for sale at the gasoline station so I bought a 10 liter one for 100 yuan.

By now it was getting dark, but we were dead set to make it to Salimu hu so we pushed on... After the intersection towards Bole the highway goes into a nature area, slowly changing from semi desert to grassland as you're climbing towards the lake... Over here the road was also being repaired so we had to race over a pot hole saturated b road... In the dark... Thank god I just installed those Xenon lights or else I would not have made it this part of the way...

As we climbed higher towards the lake the temperature plummeted... From hot to freezing cold, pretty amazing how extreme these temperature changes can be in the mountains of Xinjiang... At midnight we finally arrived at Salimu hu where we would stay at a Yurt of a Kazakh family my friend had stayed with previously...

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The second day we decided to just stay around Salimu Hu, or Sayram Lake. This lake was formed 70 million years ago when an area of mountains created by the collision of the Indian subcontinent and Asia started to sink... More info here: http://www.foreignercn.com/index.php...ang&Itemid=263

We decided just to take it easy today, ride around in the hills around the lake before continuing the trip tomorrow...

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Even during daytime, Sayram Lake is cool in summer, the lake is quite enormous and very deep so creates a local climate... Typically on good summer days cool wind blows from the lake, rises above the mountains and condenses into clouds and thunderstorms... This withheld us from going to check out the valley on the other side of the lake because it seemed to be raining over there... But it seemed our Kazakh friend, same age as my American friend so they got along quite well the last time he was here, had an idea... Let's take his minivan for a ride and have some beers...:goodtime: So we starting bouncing over a dirt road towards an eastern valley to the lake. Then our friend just stopped... It didn't really seems to be any special place... In fact one could barely see the lake from here... "let's drink!"... and so we did... I brought some speakers so we had music, we had beers, just chatting, quite interesting... They definitely have a different culture these people... Wilder, may enjoy a good fight, definitely not emancipated when it comes to women... When asked about his future wife, the only thing that seemed to matter to him was that she would take good care of his parents... And if not... Well best not go there...

After our friend had his fill he said ok... you guys can wait here, I will sleep for 2 hours... Wait... What?:eek2: Wait a moment friend... We want to go back to the yurt... It turned out that the main reason he took us here was that he likes drinking, and his father, a pretty fierce little guy, doesn't allow him to drink so he has to go somewhere else... We insisted he'd take us back, but he insisted we should go to his friends place, in a hidden lush side valley, of course he didn't want to go back to that horrible place where he wasn't allowed to drink... Anyway, sometimes one just has to go with the flow so to his friends place we went...

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At least now we were in a place that foreigners don't usually see... 20km up a dirt road from the lake... Clear creeks, moss and mushrooms growing everywhere... Nice... But after awhile we started to lose our patience again and tried to push the guy to finally take us back... He insisted we'd eat with his friends though... I was really hungry and just wanted to go back to the yurt which has food we know, food we trust... But, in the end these were friendly people just being hospitable so one doesn't want to be disrespectful either... The young wife, early twenties, who already had two kids, was preparing something for us and we were offered milk tea... Shockingly the father and his friend were actively encouraging the eldest son to start smoking cigarettes... a weird sight... :eekers:

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Finally some food came, I was starved... Some old bread and a true delicacy, sheep lung... or something... It tasted like some kind of fish cake I once had in Norway... Very soft and a mild taste... In fact I was loving it but my American friends were a lot less enthusiastic... After dinner, we finally went on our way back... It was already dark... But then... The minivan was out of gas... Oops... Still more than 10 km from the lake, we had the pleasure of walking in the dark for two and a half hours before we finally got back to the Yurt at like 3 in the morning...

My American friends were seriously pissed off... In fact they walked as quickly as they could, whereas I just let them go in front... I chose to take longer to get back but at least try to enjoy myself... Thank god I had my flashlight with me... The stars in the sky were pretty amazing... The last bit of the way the kazakh guy came back for me on his motorcycle and rode me back to the yurt.

The next day my friends sister pulled the plug on our trip together... The first night she almost froze to death on the back of that motorcycle, which is not too comfy for a passenger either, and the second night she had to march for her life in the dark for 10 kilometers... She had her fill... Understandable... We shook hands and parted ways, I was hell bent on continuing and finally reaching my goal; seeing the Snow Lotus Peak...

To be continued...

When did you do this ride? I rode down that road (by the lake) 4 days ago. It was beautiful, but freezing.

Last week, too bad, we could have done some riding together... Now it seems you are on your way back to Harbin...

well done tunafish , I think you got that galaxy loaded up pretty good there

Day 3, I wasn't sure where would be my next stop... It seemed a bit far to try to make it all the way to Zhaosu, anyway, first up is the beautiful road from Sayram lake to Yili...

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Only 3 years ago going to Yili wasn't that easy... There wasn't a railway going there, and it's surrounded by mountains on all sides except the Kazachstan side... Which makes it have a much more western Asian climate then the rest of Xinjiang... The only way in most of the year is the road via Sayram lake, other roads into the prefecture have to cross high mountain passes that even in the middle of summer can see snow. Now however, with help from a Hong Kong based construction company, Yili has a brand new highway going there with a huge suspension bridge, tunnels, the works, like riding in the European Alps, beautiful...

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Soon enough the road left the mountains and the temperature went back to soaring hot. I was considering whether to stay a night in Yili or not... I heard that Yili has a strict policy when it comes to foreigners only allowing them to stay in the most expensive hotels starting out at 300 yuan per night. Not sure if this policy comes from the instability in the region and therefore is intended to keep us foreigners safe from rioting Uyghurs, or if this policy comes from the need to milk us foreigners for every cent we got... As I'm a cheap dutchman I didn't want to pay 300 per night:rolleyes1:. However, I was a bit worried about the oil in my engine, I'd better play it safe and replace it... And a shower would be nice as well... Let's see if I can bargain down the price a bit, so I decided to go into Yili to have a try...

The first hotel with rooms I found was very welcoming, the standard price was indeed 300, but they went down to 238, being extra nice, hoping I would come back in the future and bring all my foreign friends... Well fine, let's have that shower... The room was pretty good, came with a PC that came in handy...
After locating a possible street with motorcycle shops in google maps I went and changed the oil, which was blacker than black... Good move, I would have hated being 700km away from home with an engine that had been destroyed...

Well, I'm in Yili, a pretty old city with a large Uyghur population, time for some Kebabs and beers... Walking around, trying to find any place where people were sitting outside, having Kaorou, and enjoying the nice summer evening, I found nothing... Maybe I'm in the wrong side of town, but in Shihezi people enjoy their food outside all over the city, strange... I stopped a taxi and asked him to take me to a place where I can just sit outside, have a Kebab and a beer. Shockingly he told me that because of the fear for riots all outside barbecue places in the city had temporarily closed. Well... That sucks... In the end he brought me to one of the very Han suburbs and over there I could have my meat & beer...

Somewhere in the middle of the night I woke up, my stomach rumbling, oh oh... that doesn't promise a lot of good... F@#k me, it took me so long to find that barbecue place, and for my efforts I just got food poisoning... In fact, later I found out that my American friends also both got food poisoning, so it was in fact the sheep lung we had in that yurt the day before yesterday... Food poisoning, I'm guessing it was salmonella, can take one or two days before it kicks in... And kicking in it did...

So I lost a day, couldn't eat anything without throwing up, and squirting brown water like a sewage pipe during a flood... Thank god I made the decision earlier to stay in a good hotel, rather than in my tent on some hill... At about seven in the evening I decided to try and resist the urge to go to the toilet forcing my bowels to absorb the water I was drinking... This seemed to work, the next day I stayed in the hotel as long as I could and at 2 o'clock I was back on the motorcycle, on my way south to Zhaosu...

So now it was day 5, I crossed Yili river and was on my way on the S212 south to the mountain range that separates the Yili and Zhaosu municipalities... After the green zone close to the river, the landscape changed back to semi desert but slowly got greener again as it climbed towards the mountains, another hot summers day...

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At the start of the mountains there was a military checkpoint, and I wasn't allowed to continue... Shit... I was afraid of this, I heard rumours that Zhaosu municipality is off limits to foreigners because of it's border with Kazachstan, or something... Wait... What? Oh, the road is under construction, I just have to wait for an hour... OK... I wasn't the only one, some cars were also waiting... After about 40 minutes I chatted a bit with a policeman, when the soldier came over and told me I could go, ride slowly, be careful... Ok, thanks mate! The other cars still had to wait...

You might not even notice the existence of this particular mountain range if you glance over the map of Yili... To the west they go into Kazakhstan and to the east after awhile they just stop as Yili river makes a U turn. In fact Yili river starts out in Kazakhstan, flows into China through Zhaosu, makes a U turn to the west towards Yili and flows back into Kazachstan... The mountains here reach up to 3700 meters and the road itself also climbs up to over 3000 m. Again time to change clothes as summer changes to winter once again...

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Road works here and there meant some delays, but nothing serious...

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Coming down on the other side I quickly reached Zhaosu town and here I saw the Chinese name of my destination for the first time, written in the brown column. It says Xiata Da Xiagu Jingqu, which means Xiata Gorge scenic area.

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I was excited, I finally knew the name of the place I was going... After a quick refuelling in Zhaosu I quickly continued, the limit I set for myself for this trip was 7 days and I was running out of time... My goal was to catch snow lotus peak on my camera and since it's in the clouds most of the time, I have to get there tonight so I can take photo's tomorrow morning... Zhaosu is a beautiful place, much more lush than yili, I bet it rains a lot more here, another difference is that Yili city sits at 600 m altitude whereas Zhaosu town sits at 1900 m...

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Now I was getting close, almost there I got stopped by another checkpoint... They seemed to overestimate my ability to understand their Chinese, I couldn't understand half of what they were telling me... But it was obvious they were quite baffled by this foreigner... They called someone, I heard something like "not possible", "on a motorcycle"... Then they told me to go down the road... to do something... So I went down the road a bit but couldn't see anything... I went back to the checkpoint, in Chinese the officer told me: "Down the road! 7 kilometers, you want to go to that place right?" Ehm... OK... So I just go there? Arriving at Xiata at about 20:30, I saw a rather large police station... Ok, so I guess what they meant was I should register at that police station... Sadly it looked closed, as far as I know foreigners need to register within 24 hours at the places they are visiting, so I supposed tomorrow should also be ok...

Going into the tourist area, this was clearly gearing up to become a major tourist attraction in Xinjiang... A huge gate was being build with an also huge eagle statue on top. Then after awhile it looked similar like places such as Kanas lake and Heavenly lake. A parking lot and little tour busses to carry tourists into the area... Not as pristine as what I was hoping for... I went inside.

After about an hour of riding I arrived at my final destination. What an amazing place... Squirrels and marmots running around everywhere, huge eagles and vultures in the sky, so many flowers and of course some of the highest mountains in the Tian shan mountain range...

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Day 6, Sunrise, the moment I had been waiting for... Xuelian Feng (Snow Lotus peak) can be seen in the top right corner of the picture... Note that it couldn't be seen in the previous picture the night before... The mountains in front of it also rise way over 5000 meters, behind them there is a huge glacier valley and behind that the Snow Lotus peak.

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Let's zoom in on the Snow Lotus peak.

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Edelweiss, in Switzerland a rare flower and national symbol, only to be found in the purest of alpine meadows, here it's growing everywhere, literally everywhere...

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The majestic Tian Shan and a sea of flowers...

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Aaachh! Pure beauty!

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Going to Zhaosu was worthwhile... I have been in Xijiang for 8 years, been to many places, this is, in my opinion, the most beautiful place in Xinjiang....

I have to get back here one day... Maybe next week, there are still more things to see apparently...

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Some other notable mountains seen from far away:

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Chuelebos Feng; 6731 m

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Khan Tengri 7010 m

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Great RR Lucky you saw it before the masses descend on it.

Great RR, great pictures.

Motokai and I went to Xinjiang last year but did not ride beyond Urumqi. I know there are lots more to see in Xinjiang than Turpan and Urumqi, few places we visited. Your RR just proved it. I also enjoyed reading your experience with some locals and cops. Interaction with people in a foreign land, however brief, offers a first-hand taste of their minds, culture and custom. Those sometimes bizarre, often comical encounters make the trip complete.

Please keep on reporting from Xinjian. Cheers!

Big damo... Next time you come to Shihezi.... Let me know...

OK Will do. We where going to go up that way . We planned to go to Salmou Lake and go through to the back entrance/exit gate and up into the mountains near the border of Kazakhstan and then turn right and head north up to Kanas. But only made it as far as Salmou lake when the car packed it in. Oh well next time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by milton

Great RR, great pictures.

Motokai and I went to Xinjiang last year but did not ride beyond Urumqi. I know there are lots more to see in Xinjiang than Turpan and Urumqi, few places we visited. Your RR just proved it. I also enjoyed reading your experience with some locals and cops. Interaction with people in a foreign land, however brief, offers a first-hand taste of their minds, culture and custom. Those sometimes bizarre, often comical encounters make the trip complete.

Please keep on reporting from Xinjian. Cheers!

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All the best parts are beyond Urumqi.

Great stuff tunafish! Yili looks great, I wanted to include it on my Xinjiang loop but it looked impossible to go to Kashgar from there without doubling back a ways. By the look of those mountains I doubt they'll be building a road through anytime soon but you never know...TIC!

That's a serious amount of beauty. Serious. I'm happy you went ahead with the plan so you could share it here.