One comment we sometimes receive about our treks is that the scenery isn't very 'Chinese'. The West of Sichuan simply doesn't feature the Karst mountains and paddy fields people sometimes imagine. The Tibetan areas we usually visit come with their own scenery which is at least as beautiful, but it was these comments which gave us the idea of organising treks in more 'traditional' Chinese countryside.

Wulong was the obvious choice for us. It's a really beautiful area which is only just opening up for tourism, and more importantly is an area that Matt is very familiar with from his time caving in the area. A pilot trek was thus organised over the Chinese New Year, and we quickly filled a group of eight from four countries. New Year is not really the best time to investigate logistics especially considering the transport outages caused by the worst weather for fifty years, but surprisingly everything went relatively smoothly, and a good time was had by all. We managed to get to most of our itinerary (Houping Tiankengs, ancient farmland, three natural bridges, Chongqing city, ...)

A fuller description of the trip with photos will appear on the website soon.