Since we are all living in the North East of the city, we usually ride to the North from Beijing, but once or twice a year we also go West. Pain is that "transfer" to the good riding areas is much longer to the West.
Plan was to get to the top of Baihuashan and later to cross the mountains towards South on a track I'd spotted in GE.
Participants: Robert (K100), Andy (R1150GS Adv)
Start: 2007-06-13 06:30
End: 2007-06:13 18:30
Distance traveled: 360 km
Max. Altitude: 1980 m
We left 06:30, went west and had a roadside breakfast after one hour. It's good to ride with Robert, he is always carrying enough food for three people and two weeks.
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Breakfast is served
After the break we continued following national road G108 and turned North at milestone "km74". We followed this small road for about 25kms before we reached a bigger village. From there we took the wrong way first, climbing up through coal mining areas, before the "road" finally ended. When I appeared on the scene I saw a bunch of guys with their shovels running away. Must have been an illegal part of coal mining there.
We had a short break, when Robert discovered a deep crevasse all over the place we were standing on. We suddenly felt discomfort and left immedeatly. On the way back down to the village we took some pictures of the mining railway's main terminus.
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Illegal Cola Mine ?
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mine railway terminus
Back to the village we found the right way and still everything is covered in coal dust - meanwhile including us. The entrance to Baihuashan mountain road was easy to find and up we went, stopping a couple of times for pics. Close to the peak, we suddenly were in thick fog. It wasn't too nice up there and now views so we left after a short break.
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We left the coal dust for a while
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Road to Baihuashan peak
When we came back down from the peak, we continued to ride through all the coal mining areas. After a bit of searching around for the right way to go, we got on a dirt, or better coal dust road.
At the end of this road, some gravel was piled up to avoid vehicles from entering it. It wasn't too much of a problem for us to go across it and we were then on a concrete road. Concrete roads are slippery by nature and it gets worse with the coal dust, but now it started to drizzle. It was like riding on ice and when I stopped once and put my left foot down I almost slipped away.
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A pile of rubble and a dirty kid
We reached national road G108 and found a little shelter just beside the road where we took our lunch. From GE I knew there must be dirt road across the mountains, South towards Shidu. We found the entrance to the little road immediately. The first 2 - 3 kms was on concrete and turned to dirt afterwards. The rain had stopped meanwhile but riding conditions weren't too good on the 5cm mud layer.
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Robert making his way up the muddy road
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A look back to the muddy section
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Mountain view
A short break before we continued riding up. When we got to the top, the path changed from mud to gravel and we were awarded for the difficult way up.
What followed was simply unbelievable. A canyon turned up, where the road snaked down in about ten layers.
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on gravel now
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Entering the canyon
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Road snaking down into the canyon
We stopped several times to take some pictures and enjoyed the quiet.
Unbelievable to find such a place just 80kms (straight line) from Beijing's city center.
Overwhelmedby the sheer beauty of this spot we stayed a while before we continued. Soon after the road turned to concrete and we finally reached a known road which would bring us North, back up to national road G108.
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The road up to G108
The 120kms back to home were uneventful. First thing back at the pub was to spill the coal dust down our throats with beer, then wash the bikes and ourselves. Another great experience - the huge contrast between pollution and almost untouched natural beauty just a few kms apart.
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Map part 1 - click to enlarge
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Map part 2 - click to enlarge
Andy
