For that, I would have to go beyond Shangri-La, to the foot of the Kawa Karpo massif.
Tibetans consider snow mountains to be holy sites, life-giving forces, and Kawa Karpo is one of the most sacred. Tens of thousands of pilgrims come from far and wide each year to trek around the massif, gaining karma by repeated circumambulations. I was told most Tibetans do the circuit in under 10 days; foreigners usually take longer.
We only had a week off, so we decided to hike the "inner circuit," a shorter walk that goes first from the valley of the Mekong River, called the Lancang here, to the secluded Tibetan village of Lower Yubeng, then to several sacred sites near the village. Among those are Mystic Lake and Mystic Waterfall. With names like that, the area promised no shortage of spiritual encounters.
After we left Gyalthang, we spent two days getting to the trailhead village of Xidang, stopping first to view the Kawa Karpo massif at sunrise from the lookout point of Feilaisi. The next day, we hiked up to a sprawling glacier above the village of Mingyong. The glacier, the lowest in China, is retreating at an alarming rate because of climate change.
Standing on a platform above its white and blue crevasses, we could hear the crunching from its maw as ice shifted in the nether reaches.
Xidang was just a short drive from Mingyong, along a rutted road that ran along the stunning Mekong Valley. Villages with white Buddhist stupas dotted the valley walls. On the final stretch of road up to Xidang, our driver stopped at a monastery to burn juniper branches, unleashing an intensely fragrant smell that, for me, instantly evoked the Tibetan world.
No corner of the world was immune to change. For one thing, capitalist cooperatives had arrived here. Dozens of Tibetan horse handlers had formed such a cooperative at the trailhead to Yubeng. They charged tourists a fixed rate to carry people or luggage over the Nazongla Pass into Yubeng.
Tini and I wanted to walk, but not with our large backpacks, so we hired Aqinmu, a middle-aged Tibetan woman, to take our packs to Yubeng on her horse.
Most Chinese tourists opted to ride horses over, as did a group of Tibetan city slickers who wore cowboy hats. We saw them along the trail as we hiked up, their horses kicking dust in our faces. But the horses always outdistanced us, so we had the trail mostly to ourselves — just the birds and pine trees and blue sky for company. It was late October, the end of the good weather, but the days were still warm.
