What a spectacular awe-inspiring, yet challenging day! We rode up about 3000′ to near 10,000 elevation. A couple of the folks expressed difficulty breathing, I was fine all day! So thankful for my health.

Our biking day started at White Water River, a beautiful turquoise glacial fed lake. This place was full of hundreds of Chinese tourists. It was possible to rent traditional Chinese costumes an have photos taken while atop water buffalo. I have pictures! But truly an amazingly turquoise mountain lake.

Up and up all day. We rode up a mountain pass and over into the Yangtse gorge. Just stunning to see everything, and still farming at high elevation.

We hiked down to the Yangtse while porters carried our bikes due to the steepness and rough gravel trail. At bottom, we took a rustic ferry across, then hiked 2k up the other side to a gravel road. Back in the bikes for another 12k mostly uphill along the incredibly scenic Tiger Leaping Gorge. All together 70k today, lots of uphill!

Finally arriving at Chateau de Woody in the middle gorge around 7pm, a very rustic guest house. Very basic rooms, but looking directly across the gorge. Reminds me of El Capitan in Yosemite; an incredibly high near vertical face that completely fills your view up to the clouds. Fantastic!

We had a wonderful home cooked meal of eggplant, snap peas, broccoli, potatoes (rUsty), chicken, yak, rice, cabbage soup, and a couple other dishes. Wonderful food after a full day of biking.

Tomorrow is another day to be thankful!

Day 3 – Lijiang to Tiger Leaping Gorge We transfer to the edge of the national park and start the ride to the gorge of Yangtse River(Ch. Jin Sha Jiang). The first half of this ride has two long climbs to get to our high point of the day at 3200m. From here we enjoy a spectacular 30 km downhill to Daju (1780m), this is a fantastic stretch with some great views. After a late lunch stop it is only a short ride to where we hike down to the river, cross in a small ferry (with the bikes) and then climb out of the gorge for 2 km. We then have the option of riding the 14 km to our guesthouse. Chateau De Woody Guesthouse. Ride 76 km. B L D