22-Feb-2009 -- Tenth in a 10-point hunt. Continued from 34N-105E; followed by going home.

This point had been attempted by my Swiss friend, Rainer Mautz, on Sept. 4, 2006 during one of his astounding bicycle tours. Rainer got to 22 km of the point before deciding to call it quits on this one which, given his take-no-prisoners approach to Confluence Hunting, didn’t portend well for out chance of success. My only hope was that Rainer had made a blunder that we might capitalize on. No such luck.

Rainer, best I can tell from reconstructing this part of his journey from details in his report, was headed north at the beginning of his trek while we were headed south at the end of ours. Southeast of the CP by about 45km S/L he turned north off of highway 212, hoping to pass the point in an adjacent valley then loop back southwest on county roads.

On most highway maps of China this looks to be the only way to get at this point, except for the walking path Rainer mentioned which came in from the northwest. However, I have other maps which indicate the area is crisscrossed with a latticework of trails and “roads,” but nothing to indicate whether a road is drivable or suitable only for goats.

Our drive down from 34N-105E was on the 212 which takes a big loop around some mountains west of the CP (which I guess was also in Rainer’s thinking as he decided on the shortcut). This highway passes Lin Jiang, the starting point of the foot path Rainer mentioned. It was near that point we logged our closest documented point of approach: 9.7 km (actually, the road gets to about 7km but I seem to have lost that photo of my GPS). So we did manage to get inside Rainer’s circle but were still a *long* way away.

Lin Jiang is at about 800m elevation whereas the mountain pass is at about 2100m. Not a huge ascent, but enough to take a bit more planning than we had given it. At a 3:1 ration of actual: straight line distance, I estimate this hike would be about 30 km each way with a 1km ascent. There are no hotels in this area, so it would mean a night in the car before and after the all-day excursion. Not at all an easy Point.