This was a nice four day trip over two of the highest passes over four sisters mountain and jia jin mountain.
5/1 We all met up in Chengdu in the morning and the 8 of us headed out towards Balang mountain near four sisters park. Since it was the holiday of course there was a ton of traffic. Its probably better to take the back roads to Dujiangyan at least. We had lunch on the way at got to the top of the pass which is about 4480 meters around 430. I thought there would be more snow on the road but luckily it wasn’t too bad or super freezing. Most of the people began biking down from there.
By the time people got near the entrance of Four sisters park it began to pour. Luckily most of the cyclists got cover in the one of the dozens of shops near the park. One of the guys Deano continued on in the rain to our meeting point at the intersection. We had originally planned to camp up the mountain a little ways but because of the rain we changed plans and began looking for a hotel. It wasn’t easy to find one because of the holiday but luckily the woman at the shop said she had a home stay so we went up the road a few kms to her places which was as great idea since it was a nice place. I cooked the barbecued food I brought and we had some local food.
5/2 The next day we drove up to the top of Jia Jin shan (around 4100 meters) about 40 minutes away so they could begin the long downhill. We had lunch at the top and people began heading down. It was a little cold but not too bad. The road was busier then usual and bumpy so you need to be careful but the views are amazing.
We arrived in the small village of Jialacun and considered getting a hotel but since we didn’t camp the night before we ended up camping behind the hotel in a nice area and had dinner in the hotel just next door. We made a fire and it rained a bit but not too bad.
5/3 We packed up, had breakfast and continued down the mountain towards Baoxing. The road wasn’t as steep and nicer but still a little more traffic then any of my previous trips. The town of Baoxing is pretty nice. It looks like a small city but there are hardly any people there so its not crowded and noisy like many of these small cities in the mountains can be. The hotel we got had a great view and then we had a great lamb hot pot later.
5/4 We had a nice last day along the river to Lushan. It was pretty flat and there was some great sections because there were two roads. The one with all the cars that was faster and the old road which went through some nice canyons and was really nice. We had lunch and then headed back to Chengdu, which luckily wasn’t that busy with traffic. Great trip and time:)
