Last week my friend 33 went for the summit push on Haba, which reminded me of the time when I came back from EBC and started wanting to summit an island peak. So my friend baba and I agreed that climbing Haba would be our first step. I broke my promise (and got fat instead), while baba fulfilled most of that wish on Haba before leaving for the U.S.

If I get the chance to return to Yunnan, I want to hike the Haba loop and call it a tribute to my youth.

Haba Snow Mountain sits between Lijiang and Shangri-La, a bit farther north than Tiger Leaping Gorge. At 5,396 meters, it’s considered a beginner-friendly snow mountain. For many people, their first conquered snow mountain is either Haba or Siguniang Mountain.

In the Naxi language, Haba means “a flower like gold,” so there’s no need to say much about the scenery.

The drive from Lijiang to Haba Village at the foot of the mountain takes a little over three hours, and the road is easy. We left at noon and arrived in the village by sunset, just in time for Haba in the evening light.

The villages around Haba have a complex but fascinating makeup. Haba Village, at the foot of the mountain, has become the main tourism base. The earliest Naxi residents settled in Guluba. Yangshan and Yinshan are Han Chinese villages. Lanjia Village on the mountainside is home to many Hui people. Higher up is Yijia Village, as the name suggests, inhabited by the Yi people. Farther out there are also communities of the Lisu people.

I parked beside an open space near Lanjia Village. Not wanting to look for lodging, I simply slept in the car under the stars. The next morning, I woke up facing sunrise on Haba.

As it turned out, the village ancestral hall was right beside me, making the perfect foreground.

The hiking trail starts at Dela Pasture, 3 kilometers away. You can walk there or drive. The pasture has fantastic views, with forest and snow mountain right in front of you. I took a deep breath of the crisp air and was getting ready to set off when a local guide walked over.

The guide said that without hiring a guide, I wasn’t allowed to hike up the mountain and had to leave immediately. Then came a long speech about how the mountain belonged to their village, balabala. To be fair, guides are necessary—if something goes wrong in the mountains, rescue efforts waste a lot of resources. But part of the reason is probably also that if too many people hike independently, guide business suffers.

It looked like any chance of hiking was about to be shut down. After a brief internal struggle, I decided to try my luck on another side trail.

At the stream near the end of the path, I found two women camping there, and I thought, finally, some company. Later they told me that when they saw me walking toward them, they were terrified and thought I was another guide coming to chase them away. It turned out they’d already had their own run-in the day before.

Lingling and Xingxing were seriously cool. They run a guesthouse in Dukezong and had spent the past few months hiking all over the place. Before coming to Haba, they had just summited Mount Namo.

This border collie is named Erpang. I respectfully call him Master Pang. He’s seen far more snow mountains than I ever have.

Master Pang is a sensible border collie. He carries his own food and walks with effortless speed.

With three people together, I felt much more secure. We followed the stream upward, and the sweeping golden pasture told me right away that I’d come to the right place. I was grateful for that little bit of persistence earlier.

The autumn colors were everywhere, the sky a brilliant blue—this was Shangri-La at its finest in fall.

Hiking and camping 101: bring a cup and a stove to cut down on pack weight. See? You can drink from the streams you pass on the trail—or if you don’t want to, at least use them as a photo prop.

And just like that, we were drinking.

Up ahead in the pasture we spotted a tiny black dot. Turns out it was another solo hiker. We caught up and said hello, and he was actually from my home province of Zhejiang. No need to guess—he’d definitely had his own skirmish with the guides too. And just like that, the united-against-a-common-enemy Wonder4 officially debuted.

With experienced Paul in front and the well-equipped Lingling-Xingxing duo behind, I’d never fought such a well-supplied hiking battle in my life.

The first major climb on Haba passes through a long stretch of old-growth forest, gaining elevation all the way to Lanhuaping Pasture at around 3,400 meters.

And then Haba Snow Mountain is suddenly just right in your face. I thought for a long time about what word could best describe it, and in the end, “in your face” was the only one that matched that first impression.

Imagine what it would feel like to climb from here all the way up to that snowy peak in the distance.

The contrast between humans and nature is overwhelming—and Haba is still one of the smaller players among snow mountains.

Lanhuaping is the first campsite on the loop hike. There are a few wooden cabins, and during peak season some people also run a more upscale camp here.

The pasture covers a large area, so if you’re not in a rush, spending a night here facing Haba directly is a great option—and a good way to acclimate.

The cabins, steeped in autumn, made it feel as if the scene had shifted to the Rockies and Banff, with “country road take me home” playing in my head.

The trees, sharply divided by color, looked like a musical composition with its own rhythm.

Sitting in front of the cabins, Paul pulled out his stove and boiled water, and soon everyone was busy making coffee and instant noodles. Then I shocked the group by pulling all kinds of random things out of my pack—including heavy snacks that weren’t even filling. Amateur!

Paul was on vacation, hiking all the way here from western Sichuan in a slow, wandering journey. After hearing him sing its praises, I felt like staying in Yunnan and Sichuan forever.

Fueled up on caffeine and food, we hoisted our packs and got moving again. One look at the snow mountain was all the motivation we needed.

Lingling and Xingxing were taking a detour to Shuanghai, so we said goodbye and split up. This year, Lingling also opened a vintage bookstore in Shangri-La called Sangjiweina. After seeing some of her work, I can say without exaggeration that she’s a designer overflowing with talent from every angle.

Keep moving under that load, good girls!

The second climbing section goes through alpine rhododendron forest, though of course you won’t see blooms in autumn. Locals told me that in May, before the rainy season arrives, the mountains are covered in beautiful rhododendrons.

Paul and I walked one behind the other, stopping now and then so he could check on my progress. Seeing that I was struggling, he lent me one of his trekking poles—can you believe I didn’t even have one? Later, that pole practically became a lifesaver.

The snow mountain kept appearing and disappearing. Looking through one notch in the ridge, it really did feel closer to Haba—and I couldn’t help imagining rhododendrons filling the foreground.

Skirting the mountainside and out of the rhododendron forest, we were at roughly 4,100 meters elevation. At the third small pasture, a stream flowing down from the snowy peaks crossed the trail. There was no time to stop and admire it again—we started climbing.

The scree slope was only a little over 200 meters in vertical gain, but it felt utterly hopeless. The plants beside the trail shrank before my eyes—from taller than a person, to shoulder height, to waist height, to creeping flat along the ground. I had to stop and catch my breath every three steps, while Paul had already turned into a tiny black dot disappearing into the distance.

The incline was that steep. That little pointed tip of the snow mountain was my only motivation to keep going.

Finally, after cresting the ridge and looking down from above, Haba and Black Lake suddenly spread out before me all at once. In that moment, every drop of sweat—and every questionable decision that brought me here—felt worth it.

This must be what people mean by “a ridge from one side, a peak from another”—the kind of scenery you simply can’t stop looking at.

Black Lake is a high-altitude glacial moraine lake. As the glacier melted, the debris it carried built up here and formed a depression. Nature’s power is incomparable.

There weren’t many hikers out that day; we only ran into one other group on the trail. This stretch around Black Lake is absolutely the most, most, most stunning part of the Haba loop hike.

The moment I saw Black Lake, I deeply regretted not bringing a tent. Not being able to spend the night and watch the sunrise there felt like a real loss. Some places are like some people—once you miss them, you may never return.

The “Despair Slope” and “Moon Bay” were clearly visible to the naked eye.

Reluctantly saying goodbye to Black Lake marked the end of the magical part of the trip.

On the way back, the nerve-racking part began.

At Black Lake, after checking previous hikers’ GPS tracks, I estimated there were still seven or eight kilometers to go, with about two hours left before sunset. It still seemed manageable. I started heading down, hoping to make it before dark, but Paul—the little black dot—was nowhere to be seen anymore.

Going up is hard, but going down can be just as hard. Descending has always been one of my biggest weaknesses. Sure enough, I took nearly half an hour to cover just one kilometer. At that pace, I was definitely going to end up in the forest after nightfall.

I sprinted across a few flatter sections, and when I saw the small cabins by the pasture, I even considered hiding out in one for the night so I wouldn’t get lost.

When I was about two kilometers from the end, darkness arrived right on schedule—and I was still in the mountains. I could no longer see anything around me clearly. Only the weak light from my phone illuminated the ground at my feet.

I had no choice but to rely completely on navigation, keeping my little arrow aligned with the track and inching forward bit by bit, like some treasure hunter in a movie. Thankfully, there were no wild animals in the mountains.

At last, I could feel the trail ahead becoming flatter and more open. In that moment, I was grateful for human technological progress, grateful for the internet, grateful for GPS, grateful for Steve Jobs, grateful for 两步路...

Once I emerged from the mountains, my slightly panicked heart immediately settled down. The valley was quiet and still, yet I didn’t feel afraid at all, because the star-filled sky was walking with me. It was the joy of having conquered something once again.

Did you think that was the end? The scary part was over, but the surprises were just starting again.

Back in Lanjia Village, there were still another three or four kilometers of mountain road before reaching the foot of the mountain. By then I really didn’t feel like walking anymore, and I thought maybe I should imitate the ancients: “This humble scholar is on his way to the capital for the imperial exam and has missed the inn for the night—might I trouble you for lodging?”

Just then, a villager came out to do some work in his courtyard, and I shamelessly went up and asked whether I could rest at his home for the night. As soon as the uncle heard me, he warmly ushered me into the inner room.

Uncle Lan’s surname was indeed Lan. He was Hui, and his wife was Tibetan. Sitting by the fire in the little room felt like VIP treatment—a world apart from what I had just gone through in the mountains. Uncle Lan kept asking whether I wanted anything to eat or drink, and eventually arranged for me to stay in the tool shed.

The next morning, I got to experience real Haba village life: making butter tea, eating baba, drying corn, chopping firewood, feeding the cows, and cutting grass for them. Even the two Tibetan mastiffs that had barked furiously at me all night became gentle. My solo hike had somehow been upgraded into a farmhouse stay.

I got in touch with Lingmei and learned that the other route had also turned into a frightening ordeal the day before. The two of them got separated, and without a tent, Lingling had no choice but to make do for the night in a small cabin by Black Lake, wrapped in an emergency blanket and sleeping bag. It was truly fortunate that things turned out okay.

On the way down the mountain, I bought Uncle Lan a carton of cigarettes, and we agreed to head back up to the mountain pasture together for a few days in May, when the rhododendrons are in bloom.

I gave someone a free ride back to Lijiang, wanting to pass along that kindness. On the drive back, moments from Haba kept flashing through my mind, especially the people I met there. If I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t be writing these words today, so full of memories.

For hiking around Shangri-La—from Tiger Leaping Gorge to Yubeng to Abujicuo to Haba—every trip has brought a different kind of surprise. I highly recommend it, and if I get the chance, I hope I can return again to this lost horizon.

01 Basic hiking gear checklist

Clothing: Quick-dry shirt, quick-dry socks, shell jacket and pants, lightweight windbreaker

Gear: Hiking shoes, trekking poles, headlamp, emergency whistle (the first four are especially important), rain gear, insulated water bottle, hiking backpack

Medicine: Sunscreen, stomach medicine, Band-Aids, vitamin C

Hiking apps: 两步路, Alltrails, Maps.me

02 Itinerary and food/lodging

This itinerary is the most time-luxurious version; you can simplify it based on your needs:

D0 - Arrive in Lijiang

D1 - Travel from Lijiang to Haba Village in the morning, start hiking, and stay overnight at the Lanjia Ping campsite

D2 - From Lanjia Ping, detour via the Twin Lakes to Black Lake, and stay overnight by Black Lake

D3 - Black Lake to Haba Base Camp

D4 - Start the summit push before dawn, descend back to Haba Village at noon, and return to Shangri-La or Lijiang in the evening

Route: Various Haba routes can all be found on “两步路.” The basic route is Lanjia Village - Dela Pasture - Yangfang Pasture - Lanhua Ping - Rhododendron Forest - Black Lake - Base Camp (or Lanjia Village)

Food and lodging: In Haba Village, you can find basic accommodations and meals. If you have a guide, they will probably help arrange them