Created 11-Feb-07
Modified 11-Feb-07
Photographs of the Mt. Siguniang (Four Sisters Mountain) area in western Sichuan province. The main peak is almost 6300 m high and counts as the highest mountain in China outside Tibet. The area is now open to foreign tourists (it wasn't back in 1985 when these pictures were taken), and on the Chinese national register of scenic parks.
In the Mt. Siguniang vicinity are a number of rather steep valleys, such as the Changping Gou 长坪沟, which serve as a conduit to torrential mountain streams which are basically unnavigatable because of the velocity and volume of the charging waters. I found a couple of old handgrenades (from the time of the Long March?) on the banks of one of such streams. On the banks of another, wild yak were grazing.
The road that ultimately leads to the former provincial capital of Kangding (that province was abolished in the late 1920s) winds its way through scenery which is nothing short of breathtaking. The highest pass our old, creaking public bus finally managed to reach, the Balang Pass, is 4250 m high, and offers a stunning view of the valley floor and the mountains hovering above and in the distance. Tibetan style houses and fortified watchtowers are dotting the valleys and the slopes of the mountains.
Felice was only 2 1/2 years old when she made this arduous 8-day trip. She did exceptionally well.
Old Chinese-manufactured b/w film, scanned with an Epson 4990 scanner to 2400 dpi TIF, then converted to lossless JPG; with very few exceptions no post-processing was applied.
Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY
© Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images
