In Yunnan, there is a trail that more foreigners have walked than Chinese travelers.
The poet Yu Jian once said, “One of my dreams in Yunnan is that one day I’ll put on the kind of traveler’s outfit you see in films and make my way along a perilous path through that great canyon: Tiger Leaping Gorge.”
Standing at the end of the hike beside the surging Jinsha River and looking back on the nearly 30 kilometers we had covered, I could finally appreciate the poet’s romantic exaggeration. I hadn’t expected Tiger Leaping Gorge to be this easy. A day earlier, we had set out from Naxi Family Guesthouse, nervously preparing for this legendary route said to “KO acrophobia.”
Tiger Leaping Gorge is a grand canyon on the Jinsha River between Naxi County and Zhongdian County. Its slopes are steep, with a vertical drop of roughly 2,000 to 3,000 meters, making it one of the deepest canyons in the world.
Starting in the 1980s, some Western backpackers began exploring the herders’ paths linking several villages in the mountains above the gorge. Gradually, the route became a word-of-mouth favorite among overseas hiking enthusiasts.
The real turning point came about 10 years ago, when several wildly popular Korean variety shows—something like today’s Divas Hit the Road—filmed in Tiger Leaping Gorge. After that, Korean visitors started pouring in.
From seniors in their seventies and eighties to kids seven or eight years old, Tiger Leaping Gorge once seemed to have only two kinds of people on its narrow trail: Koreans and everyone else. Someone even asked on Zhihu:
If you look at hiking trip reports from before 2019, the phrase “Koreans” shows up no fewer than 10 times in almost every one. The local villagers have almost certainly seen far more Koreans in their lifetimes than fellow Chinese.
Chinese tourists have been busy “conquering” New York, Paris, Sydney, and Bangkok, only to find that Koreans had quietly claimed Tiger Leaping Gorge. Wealthy Koreans hold annual meetings in Jiuzhaigou; adventurous Koreans go hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan and Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan are like Jerusalem for Koreans.
The high trail at Tiger Leaping Gorge officially starts in Qiaotou Village at the foot of the mountain, but most people choose to begin from Naxi Family Guesthouse halfway up the slope. We were no exception, since the first 4 kilometers of dusty mountain road aren’t exactly the most appealing stretch.
The first section from Naxi Family Guesthouse to the 28 Bends is all uphill. From that point on, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain range rises in front of you at close range.
At the start, the trail isn’t especially steep, and the novelty of it all makes you walk with extra energy. Dr. Zhang, who was hiking with me, even took great interest in documenting plants he had never seen before.
The red and blue bridges over the river call to mind the red-and-blue roller coaster at Universal Studios in “Po County” Singapore. The blue bridge is the Jinsha River Bridge on the Lijiang–Shangri-La Railway. Once fully opened, the trip from Lijiang to Shangri-La will take only 90 minutes, and from Kunming to Shangri-La just 5 hours (in recent years, infrastructure in northwest Yunnan has really taken off).
At the moment, the only remaining bottleneck is a tunnel beneath Haba Snow Mountain, where construction is extremely difficult. Workers often drill 3 meters in and then face 5 meters of collapse, yet the project keeps pushing forward. The entire line is waiting on this single tunnel—the whole village’s hope.
The 28 Bends are the real physical challenge, with a pretty intense climb. As we approached the small pavilion at the start, we saw mule-leading villagers sharpening their knives, metaphorically speaking, mouths wide open as they waited for us like we were the fat, juicy mules.
I didn’t count how many bends there actually were, but we gained 250 meters in elevation in one go. I had assumed the entire hike would be this intense, since Xiaohongshu posts made it sound pretty intimidating. Who knew the climax would end right there—peaking at birth, so to speak.
So at the 28 Bends, do your best to hold out. If you ride a mule, the hike turns completely into an autumn outing.
Every village along the way has its own famous old guesthouse, and Tea Horse Guesthouse was the first one we came across. The bilingual Chinese-English signage is yet another reminder that Tiger Leaping Gorge was ahead of the curve on internationalization.
After that, the flat trail along the mountainside becomes a bit dull. If not for the rushing river below and the snow-capped peaks beside you, it might even feel less interesting than mountain paths in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, or Guangdong.
From Tea Horse to that day’s overnight stop takes only about an hour, and we dawdled along because we were reluctant to finish so soon. Dr. Zhang and I even intentionally took a wrong turn to see whether we could make the day a little more challenging.
If there was one standout feature in the first half, it was that at a few cliffside spots, a carefully chosen angle could produce summit-conquering adventure photos. Find the angle, find the angle, find the angle—important things must be said three times.
Even someone like me with severe acrophobia could push myself a little.
A cup of homemade coffee, low-cost glamping, and a toast to the hikers who discovered Tiger Leaping Gorge.
On rooftops in the Lijiang area, you often see a small creature like this called a wa mao. In Yunnan, it serves as a guardian figure believed to protect the home, ward off evil, and attract wealth.
If you keep up the pace, finishing Tiger Leaping Gorge in a single day is more than doable.
The reason we stopped for a night midway was this trail’s most legendary lodge: Halfway. It opened way back in 1992, and last year happened to mark its 30th birthday. Thanks to the persistence of owner Lao Feng’s family across five generations, Halfway has accompanied generation after generation of Chinese and international hikers in Tiger Leaping Gorge.
A 50-yuan dorm bed, plus unbeatable floor-to-ceiling canyon views. A warm bed is a hiker’s best friend on the trail.
Farther away in Walnut Garden, there’s another legendary stop: Shanquan Guesthouse. Its owner, Xia Shanquan, was originally an ordinary Tibetan villager who farmed at home. In 1986, four members of a rafting team from Luoyang, Henan, walked into his house, and his world opened up from that moment on. He later became the first person in the village to open a small shop, the first to open a guesthouse, the first local to speak English, and even the first villager to marry a foreigner.
Whether it’s Halfway or Shanquan, these tiny mountain guesthouses all tell the same story: openness is the only hard truth.
Halfway’s large terrace has the nickname “Awesome as Hell.” After washing off the dust of the day, pull up a chair on the deck and recreate the same cross-legged pose as supermodel Liu Wen.
It’s rare to enjoy a sunset performance on the rock face from this close.
The sunlight lingers lovingly on the mountains, parting clouds and mist just to remain on the peaks until the very last moment.
As the last streak of red faded from the mountaintops, night fell over Tiger Leaping Gorge. Next to the guesthouse terrace was a pretty good bar—also the only one in the village, so there was no competition—with everything from locally made Yunnan whiskey to craft beer. Excellent stuff.
That evening I chatted with the owner’s family. They reminisced that although Korean visitors used to be the loudest and rowdiest, and at times lacking in manners, they still missed their spending power. Now that the pandemic is over, hopefully the scene the owner described—“an American eating Korean kimchi in Tiger Leaping Gorge, China”—will return soon.
The second day’s hike was also not very long, and feeling confident in my legs, I got a late start. Just outside the village was one of the most scenic bends on the entire Tiger Leaping Gorge trail.
This narrow gravel section, a few hundred meters long, hugs the cliffside with no guardrails at all—definitely the kind of place that makes your legs go weak and your head spin. It would be even more difficult in rainy conditions.
The waterfall plunged straight down, crashing against the rocks and throwing up rainbows. Everyone had to pass through the drifting mist, almost like a baptism. This is Guanyin Waterfall.
After that came another long, uninteresting downhill stretch until I reached the famous Tina's at Middle Gorge (the broad, stout auntie who owns the place is actually named Tina, which somehow feels a little surreal). Encouraged by everyone’s “you’ve already come this far,” I continued down to the bottom of the gorge.
The round-trip down to the gorge floor takes about two hours, but the most distinctive thing is that all the paths were built by local villagers themselves, so every section charges a fee—and they charge by section, too. Honestly, even highway toll booths aren’t this frequent. There are even signs explaining that different families built different parts of the trail, so you have to pay several times. But if you look at the names on the WeChat transfers, they’re clearly all one extended family anyway.
The river by the gorge was fierce and powerful, though in terms of sheer grandeur it really wasn’t as dramatic as the official Tiger Leaping Gorge scenic area. Still, the first time I came here, it felt absolutely stunning.
Tiger Leaping Gorge saved one last twist for the return: the Sky Ladder. That near-vertical climb scared me badly—I didn’t dare look down at all. It felt like Tom Cruise climbing the Burj Khalifa. That said, the ladder was shorter than I expected, which also left me with that “wait, it’s over already?” feeling (yes, I’m pretending to be tough here).
Back at Tina's, I officially wrapped up the Tiger Leaping Gorge High Trail. Another so-called “world-class hiking route” checked off my list.
In the past, Chinese tourists came to Tiger Leaping Gorge, got out of the car, took a few photos, and checked in; foreign travelers came for the two-day, one-night High Trail hike. Now that the pandemic is over, when we return to Yunnan, let’s all join the “Battle to Defend Tiger Leaping Gorge”!
Tiger Leaping Gorge Hiking Guide
Route: Qiaotou, Tiger Leaping Gorge - Naxi Family Guesthouse - 28 Bends - Tea Horse Guesthouse - Halfway Guesthouse - Tina's International Youth Hostel. From there, there are three routes down to Middle Tiger Leaping: One-Line Sky, the Sky Ladder, and Teacher Zhang’s Guesthouse. Most people go down via One-Line Sky and come back up via the Sky Ladder.
Overall review: In the dry season, the difficulty is close to zero. The scenery is fairly average overall, though some angles are great for photos. It’s a good option if you want a light hike near Lijiang.
Season: During the spring and summer rainy season, the trail gets slippery, which increases both the risk and the difficulty; after November, the crisp autumn weather makes for the best season.
Public transportation: Take a bus from Lijiang Bus Station toward Shangri-La (during peak season, buy tickets in advance through the “迪庆交运” WeChat official account). Tell the driver you’re going to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge, and they’ll know exactly where to drop you off. If you have luggage you don’t want to carry, the driver can help bring it to the endpoint at Tina's.
Admission: Entering the Tiger Leaping Gorge scenic area requires a 45 yuan admission ticket; the hiking route itself is completely free; the villager-run paths at Middle Tiger Leaping charge 15 yuan per section, so you’ll need at least 30 yuan.
Lodging: If you can, you absolutely should spend a night at the legendary Halfway Guesthouse. There are also other newer places to stay nearby, such as Ban Shan Ju, all within a short distance of each other. For higher-end lodging, there’s Ban Shan Mi Jing and Yachajiao Manor, both known from model Liu Wen’s stays.
Food: Drinks, snacks, and full meals are all available at the guesthouses along the route, and both the prices and quality are pretty good.