Creating a Thru Trail
Published with Sidetracked, The China Project, and more, 2017-2020
Hiking began exploding in popularity in the late 2010s across China, culminating in the beginnings of China’s first thru trails through the Hengduan Mountains of western China and Taihang Mountains along the Great Wall. These trails are ill defined. There are no signposts , no printed maps, no guidebooks, and only a handful of individuals have walked their entire length. But the grassroots nature of the project, that follows the traditional paths of herders and nomads across some of the most stunning and desolate corners of the nation, is perhaps the way that all great thru trails across the world have been started.
I was lucky enough to explore sections of these trails during that time and collaborate with the grassroots groups planning them to explore new sections. The journeys sent me to some of China’s most fantastic and remote locations, redefining for myself and many others what it was like to travel China. While the journey to cement these trails into public understanding and tradition continues, these are glimpses of one vision for China’s future, a future outdoors. Welcome to China’s wild side.
