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One of the super wow sights on the Gongga Trail
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When you think of places to trek, Mount Gongga may not be one of the first places that comes to mind. It wasn't for me or my partner either. Yet, once we saw it, we knew we had to go. It took a matter of two weeks to get all of our ducks in a row and we were off on a flight to Chengdu to start our adventure of a lifetime! While there are a lot of sites that promote tours of Gongga, videos and a few blogs, there really wasn't much information about how to trek Gongga without a guide, which is what my partner and I wanted to do. Well, that's gonna change with this blog post. This is a guide, or more like how my partner and I were able to DIY trek Mount Gongga, the King of the Sichuan Mountains. We completed 5 days on the Gongga trail. The following is what we learned.
Budget
Because getting a guide/porter for this trek is optional, the budget for this trip is significantly less. There are a few obvious big-ticket items you'll need to pay for.
- Visa for China - I paid 2200 HKD for a 10-year visa (Roughly $280 US). There are other less expensive options.
- Tickets to Chengdu - Cost varies. RT from Hong Kong to Chengdu was 2,279 Yuan ($320 US) via Shenzhen Air. I used Google Travel to find the least expensive ticket.
- Bus Ticket from Chengdu to Kangding - 150 Yuan One-Way ( $20 US)
- Taxi from Kangding to Trailhead - 300 Yuan ($40 US) - You can try to negotiate this!
- Food & Accommodation - As low as 200 Yuan a night ($28 US). We used booking, agoda, and trip to do price comparison and book our stays.
This is not including any trekking gear and accessories you'll need. If you're going with a group, you can share the costs of the taxi, food, and accommodations. If this is reasonable for you, then continue to read!
Get a Visa for China
This first and most important (you won't get into China without the visa) step is quite laborious. I did this at the Chinese Visa Application Service Center in Hong Kong, where I am conveniently located as of now. There are quite a few forms you need to fill out and print in order to best ensure that you get a visa. You can see the steps here. The administrative aspect of this is torture, and I applied for the 10-year visa so I don't have to go through all of that tediousness again!
Trek Preparation for the Gongga Trail
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Missing anything?
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The Gongga Trail is a multiday trek in high altitude where you'll encounter forests, river crossings, rocky terrain, swampy marsh, mud, yaks, and more. Just like any other mountainous adventure, the weather conditions are unpredictable. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best! Here's a
list of things you can consider packing for this trek. Some things to consider:
- VPN - Man... we didn't get a VPN before coming to China. And while we had access to wifi, we couldn't access Google, FB, IG, Tiktok, and Whatsapp was super limited. We were basically disconnected (kinda nice actually) for our whole trip in China. If you don't want that, get a VPN before you enter China.
- Weixin - Weixin is their mobile payment app. Much of China finds it inconvenient to pay with cash now haha. Be prepared to get that stink look if you do. If you want to avoid that and have a much easier time paying for things, download Wiixing.
- Maps.me - We couldn't find a map of the Gongga trail at Kangding, but we had the next best thing, maps.me. It worked well for us, until my phone died and the cord we had wouldn't charge (sigh, lesson learned).
- Prep for sub-zero temps, wind, rain and hail - Sub-zero rated sleeping bags, a rain fly for the tent, waterproof windbreakers, thermals, etc.
- Acute Mountain Sickness - You could be the fittest, most experienced trekker and you'll still get this. Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) is a serious thing that can get you into a lot of pain and trouble. You'll start the trek above 3k meters and climb to 5k at the peak! Be aware of the signs and what to do if you do get it. You may want to consider building in days of acclimitization and/or getting Diamox.
Know that there are homestays you could potentially stay at, however this is at your own risk. You may arrive and the homeowners aren't there.
The easiest would be to just do everything with a trekking guide company, but that's not why we're here, right?
5-Day Itinerary for Gongga
Ok, so you've gotten the visa and your flight to Chengdu. Awesome. Now, how exactly do you get to Gongga. The trip looked like this Chengdu > Kangding > Gongga Trail (5-days) > Kangding > Chengdu. Here's what our trip actually looked like.
Day 1: Arrive at Chengdu
We flew into Tianfu airport, then took a cab to our stay, the Chengdu Poshpacker Local Tea Hostel. We chose to stay at this particular hostel because of its proximity to the Xinnanmen Bus Station, a 5-minute walk from the hostel. For those of you scoffing at a hostel, it has the word "posh" in there for a reason. You get your own room, with an ensuite shower, nice smelling soaps and shampoos, comfy slippers, and it's clean! Another bonus is the immediate neighborhood is filled with nice eateries, food stalls, convenience stores, and even a University if you want coffee. For about $26 a night, while you can find cheaper alternatives, the convenience and overall quality of the stay won us over.
If you have time, go to the Xinnanmen Bus Station to get your tickets to Kangding. Ignore the aggressive people on the streets asking if you need a ride somewhere, just go straight to the tourism bus station. There, you can purchase the tickets. You'll need your passport if you're not a Chinese, Hong Kong, or Taiwanese citizen. The ticket was about 150 Yuan ($20 USD). You're now all set to get to Kangding!
Day 2: Travel to Kangding
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| Lots to explore in Kangding |
In the morning we headed to the Xinnanmen Bus Station and got on our bus to Kangding. It was a 4-5 hour bus ride through some beautiful scenery. It's part of the Route 318, a very popular highway from Shanghai to Tibet! We were fortunate to have one 20-minute stop to use the washroom and get some coffee and food.
Once we arrived at Kangding, we settled into our stay, the Kangyun Large Hotel. This hotel is right where the bus arrives at Kangding. We were able to get to our hotel right away, as well as get tickets back to Chengdu easily. We set out to get some last-minute things for our trek, have dinner, and also talk to some locals about how to get a taxi to the trail head. We asked our hotel receptionist as well as an owner of a trekking store. Both gave us a price of 300 to 350 Yuan to get to the trail entrance. You can try to negotiate lower.
Day 3: Start the Gongga Trail
We start the day early at 7:30 AM. We are picked up and take the 45-minute drive to the trail head of the Gongga trail. We have a chat with the driver, who mentioned that many people hike in the morning to avoid the midday heat, hike for 4-5 hours, and either pitch their tent or stay with a homestay. The trail itself is mostly visible and easy to follow, though we did have maps.me if we felt lost.
The beginning of the trail is quite beautiful. You hike through a pine tree forest, with crisp morning air, while the sun and mist surround you. The views immediately are stunning. There are mountain peaks, either snow-capped or their natural brown skin, towering above. The rivers flow fast, creating a din that mixes with the wind rustling the trees and birdsong. The ascent is gradual, yet not steep for the first couple of hours. Enjoy this!
Even though it's cold, by 1pm the sun is out and claiming out strength. We find a large rock to rest at and decide we'd camp for the night at a campsite close by. We notice that we are a bit nauseous and lightheaded...AMS. Once we get to the campsite, we quickly pitch our tent and prepare for the evening. Our AMS symptoms get more pronounced, and we decide we'd acclimatize. We cook our dehydrated dinners, take a Diamox, then call it a night.
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| Snow-capped mountains and yaks. Such beautiful things! |
Day 4: Acclimatization
This day was unplanned, but necessary. We were already close to 4,000 meters and weren't feeling to well the night before. If you try to follow safe trekking rules, a 500-meter ascent after 3,000 meters is a good enough move up. Obviously, we missed that part. We relax and rest our bodies, enjoy the scenery, and take things in mindfully. We chat with our neighbor who owns a homestay who asks why we didn't leave already and even asked if we wanted to use their horses as porters. We declined but were grateful for the offer.
Day 5: A Major Twist
After a day of rest and acclimatization we decide we can move on. We start briskly and move quickly through the first few hours. Then, a twist. I sprain my ankle. I've done this many times as a distance runner, but this time it was the scream-out-loud painful twist. Luckily, I packed some KT Tape to wrap my ankle and I also have trekking poles. My partner secures my ankle, I adjust the poles, and we're off.
Trekking with a sprained ankle is frustrating to say the least. If you allow your mind to wander, it could dominate your headspace with thoughts of "should we just cancel the rest of the trek" "what a disaster", "why do you have to be so clumsy." It's hard to manage these emotions and I had to be mindful to allow myself to feel what was going on, while be compassionate with myself. I told myself, while this journey may have taken a hard turn, just take it one step at a time. We were definitely going slower, but we were moving forward.
We arrive at a homestay where the owner told us that we could stay with him, we could pitch our tent, but we would not go any further. It was already 5pm and we'd been trekking for many hours. We were grateful to stop. I was grateful for the willpower to continue.
That night we had some unexpected visitors. The Himalayan Marmot, very cute and large rodents, came to our tent, snuck under our rainfly, and started rummaging through our trash. Let this be a lesson to us all, keep your trash tightly secured!
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| Himalayan Marmots are so cute! They're also good garbage rummagers! |
Day 6: Surrender to the Mountains
Today the plan was to go to the high pass of Gongga at 5,000 meters, to the closest camp. A few things weren't going our way though. 1. My phone lost all battery. The cord we had wasn't charging my phone. Why is this important? It had maps.me, so now we were unsure of the path. 2. We had a late start to the day. We go back and forth about what to do, talking to other trekkers that were at the homestay. The homestay owners weren't there to talk to, so we didn't have much info.
I decided to move forward anyways, despite all these signs that maybe we should sit still. As we move up the path we pass by a fellow with a pack of horses. We ask him about reaching the high pass. He lets us know that based on how he observed us, it would take us 4-5 hours to reach that place, not including the extra 1.5 - 2 hours to get to the camp site. He recommended we hold back because it was already late. With that information, our hesitancy to move, and my bum ankle, we decided to head back to the original camp site. While there, we decide to stay at the homestay for 50 Yuan per person, and to get a home cooked meal for 30 Yuan. As we get more information, we learn that we would not be able to reach the Gongga Monastery at this time as the river was too high and too fast. We aimed to get to the monastery and to end our trek at Zimei pass... but now this wasn't an option. With that in mind, we surrendered to mother nature and to the mountains. We decide to just go to a nearby lake to view it, then come back. The pressure to make it to the top and to make up time because of acclimitization left us, and allowed us to really enjoy the rest of the trek.
The hike to the lake was 2 hours up, 1 hour back down. The view was stunning! We stayed by a nearby pole with Tibetan flags as we watched the clouds roll by the mountain peaks. For some reason, the presence of Tibetan culture is soothing. Once we got back to the homestay, we enjoyed some home cooked Sichuan cuisine before calling it a night.
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| What a rewarding view! |
Day 7: Return to Kanding
The morning we were to head back to the grasslands to somehow make our way back to Kangding, one of the porters asked us if we wanted him to take our packs via his horses back to the pickup point. It would cost us 300 Yuan for the both of us. Since we were both committed to going back to Kangding, we agreed that a lighter load would help our trek back. He then also asked if we needed a ride back to Kangding. Great! He offered a ride for 200 Yuan. Awesome, that's cheaper than when we got there.
The way back to the grasslands where we began took us 6 hours. The trip was a bit short since it was going downhill, and we were only carrying a few things. We enjoyed the leisurely pace and stopping where we wanted. Once we got back to the grasslands, we caught a ride to the porter's house where our bags were stored. We got back to Kangding in the evening, ready to enjoy a nice night on a comfy bed.
Conclusion
Even though we weren't able to go to the highest point or the the Gongga Monastery, we were still able to enjoy much of what the Gongga Trail had to offer. Despite the lack of information available to people outside of China, we still made a go of it and it turned out to be an experience that my partner and I would love to come back to and finish what we started. I hope that this information is helpful to any of you trekkers that may consider Gongga as a potential trip. Have you trekked the Gongga trail? What was your experience like? If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave one in the chats below. Wishing you all light and aloha 🙏🏽🤙🏽
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