Yading

PeaksSichuan,China

Three snow peaks in western China standing in a triangle Tibetan Buddhism reads as one mandala, circled by pilgrims past glacier lakes at 4,600 metres.

September·Edge of season

Sep

September eases out of the summer rains: showers still blow through and cloud can swallow the peaks by afternoon, but the valley turns from green to yellow, every route is open, and the crowds have not yet arrived.

Year-round The three sacred peaks, Chonggu Monastery and the glacier lakes stand here every day of the year; the season decides the valley's colour, whether cloud hides the summits, and which high lakes you can reach.

Yading is a landscape that Tibetan Buddhism treats as a single sacred object: three snow peaks standing in a triangle, read as a mandala of the three bodhisattvas. Chenrezig, compassion, is the highest at 6,032 metres. Jambeyang, wisdom, is the sharp pyramid to the south, and Chanadorje, power, holds the east; both of them reach 5,958 metres. Pilgrims have circled them for centuries on the kora, the walking circuit that sets out from Chonggu Monastery at 3,880 metres. Glaciers feed the lakes below them — Pearl Lake under Chenrezig's face, and higher up Milk Lake, a turquoise eye rimmed with the pale stone that named it. Walking here is slow work. The valley floor already lies near 3,900 metres. The standard day climbs from Luorong Pasture at 4,180 metres up a steep trail to Milk Lake at 4,600 and Five-Colour Lake at 4,700, where the air is thin enough that you stop every few steps. Come at dawn. First light finds Jambeyang's pyramid before it reaches the meadow, and holds it pink while the grass is still grey with frost. In the second half of October the larch forests below the peaks turn gold. The outside world came here late, because the range lay in bandit country, and the botanist Joseph Rock's 1931 account for National Geographic was most people's first sight of it. It is no longer remote. An airport 130 kilometres away has cut a two-day road journey to an hour, the reserve can sell twenty thousand tickets a day, and on an October morning you will share the boardwalk.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Foreigners cannot book the daily quota online — the system is Chinese-only, but the ticket office holds back passes for passport holders, so buy on arrival.
Give yourself a night before you walk — you arrive at 4,411 metres and the lake trail tops 4,700, so sleep low in Daocheng first and climb slowly.
The peaks are clearest at first light — cloud usually builds over the valley through the day, and in the July and August rains the summits can stay hidden.
The pass covers two days, so use two mornings — the earliest arrivals reach Chonggu ahead of the crowd, and a second attempt costs nothing extra.

Things to do

1
Wait for first light on Jambeyang
Be at Luorong Pasture before sunrise, when the meadow is still grey and the frost has not lifted. The sun reaches Jambeyang's pyramid first and holds it copper-pink for a few minutes before the light spills down to the grass. It is also the hour when the peaks are most likely to be clear of cloud.
2
Climb to Milk Lake at 4,600 metres
From Luorong Pasture the trail turns steep and stays steep, gaining some 400 metres to a turquoise lake ringed by pale, milk-white stone, with Jambeyang standing directly above it. Five-Colour Lake lies another hundred metres higher. Allow five to six hours for the round trip and take it slowly — this is the highest ground in the reserve that most people reach.
3
Find Chenrezig upside down in Pearl Lake
The short, easy path from Chonggu Monastery ends at Pearl Lake, a small dark tarn directly beneath Chenrezig. On a windless morning the whole 6,032-metre peak lies inverted on the surface. It is the one big view here that asks almost nothing of your lungs.
4
Walk a stretch of the pilgrims' kora
The circuit that Tibetan pilgrims walk clockwise around the three peaks begins at Chonggu Monastery, and the visitor trail shares its first stretch. You pass mani stones and strings of prayer flags left at the passes, faded and re-hung season after season. Walk it in the pilgrims' direction, keeping the mountain on your right.
5
Stand under the larches when they turn
The gold is not up on the peaks — it runs along the valley floor you walk all day, so the whole trail passes through it. Larch needles turn a deep orange-gold before they drop, and because the trees stand right below the snow line, a single glance takes in gold, dark green fir, white summits and hard blue sky.