Tiger Leaping Gorge — Attraction in Lijiang City

This is a hiking place but even if you do not wish to hike , you can still take a public bus from “Lijiang passenger transport terminal” to the entrance to take amazing photos of the Tiger statue & the gushing river!

Further, you can arrange for private car transport to go to Tea Horse guesthouse and see the million dollar view of Jade Dragon snow mountain right in front of you !

If you choose to hike , the full hike would require you to first go to 纳西雅阁 Naxi guesthouse , the starting point , to hike the challenging upslope “28 bends” and reach Tea Horse guesthouse / Halfway guesthouse to stay the night, before continuing on to either

1. Tina’s guesthouse to buy tickets to take the public bus to go back Lijiang / Shangri-La

or 2) Teacher Zhang’s guesthouse to arrange for private car pick up to go back Lijiang / Shangri-La

For half day hike, you would have to arrange private car transport to either Tea Horse / Halfway guesthouse and then hike the rest of the way to either Tina’s or Teacher Zhang guesthouse.

Do note some parts of the hike after the waterfall are difficult and you need to be careful.

Note: When I visited , many of the scenic spots in the middle of the gorge such as the Gorge rock & 168 sky ladder were closed due to reports of accidents, hopefully they will open again soon…

Overall, the scenery is as authentic as you can get and the view of the gushing river and mountain is truly...

If you are thinking of hiking in Tibet China, consider the Tiger Leaping Gorge. We flew from Singapore to Chengdu to Lijiang. We stayed in the Banyan Tree Lijiang for 2 nights. From there it was just a 1.5 hour ride to the entry of the Gorge. The 17km trail through the Tiger Leaping Gorge is considered one of the best hikes in the world. It swirls through a canyon created by the majestic Yangtze River with spectacular views of towering Himalayan peaks with names like Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and Haba Snow Mountain. We completed the hike in one day. We started at the Naxi village (2100m) at 09:30am. From there 28 bends took us to the highest point at (2650m). That is a 1 hour walk, which we did at quite a steady pace. It was quite though. It is steep and the height did it's work on our lungs. On the top we had beautiful views over the gorge. Very rewarding. And there was a nice lady selling water and bananas. From there it is another 1.5hour decent to Tea Horse Trade Guest House. And 1.5 hour more to Halfway Guest House. From 13:30 to 14:30 we had lunch at Halfway. The fried eggs were delicious and the Tsingtao topped it off completely on the sun deck overlooking the snowy mountains. From Halfway to Tina's Guest House it is another 1.5 hour. We reached there at 4pm, where our driver was waiting to take us back to the Banyan Tree. This was a wonderful day and the hike comes highly...

Tiger leaping gorge in one day... If you wonder how to do it in one day without sleeping in one of the guesthouses, here is how we did it. Sharing as it wasn't easy to figure out ourselves. We took a driver from Lijiang and asked for a lift to halfway guesthouse, from there we took the beautiful hike high above the canyon with great views down on the river plus waterfalls you can use for refreshing yourself. After 2 hours you will reach Tina guesthouse for a lunch break, then head over the bridge and then down to the middle gorge (this is where the tiger actually jumped as the most narrow spot), it takes half an hour to go down with lots of stairs plus ladders. But down at the waterfront is super impressive and you can take great pics. Then don't go up the same way, you will see a way through the rock which you should take (most people don't do this as both tracks cost 15 yuan each but it is worth it). Then follow the path down to the next village and get up at Sean's guesthouse where your driver should pick you up. We actually missed the trail down to the village and got one up too early which isn't a problem at all as you can walk the last piece on the road. It took us 2 hours to go to Sean's... So in total 4.5 to 5 hours, exhausting due to the climbing up and down but so worth it... Hope that helps many...