Hiking & Trekking
How Hard Is Gongga Trekking? Altitude, Day Lengths and Honest Comparisons
Gongga has a reputation in China that travel brochures rarely explain. People say it is wild, unpredictable …
Independent mountain travel guides
Find the China most travellers never see.
Sacred peaks, high-altitude treks, hidden valleys and mountain villages — researched on the ground, written for independent travellers.
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Nature & Parks
National Parks in China: What the Designations Actually Mean
Two systems, and why the confusion matters Search for "national parks in China" and you will get a list that …
Mountains
Tianchi Lake at Changbai Mountain: When the Crater Lake Appears
Tianchi — Heaven Lake — is the reason people fly to Changbai Mountain: a crater lake at about 2,190 m inside a …
Sacred Mountains
Mount Kailash Pilgrimage Guide: Permits, the Kora and Altitude
Mount Kailash is not a summit you stand on. It is a 6,638-metre cone of black rock and permanent snow in the …
Hiking & Trekking
Mount Gongga Hiking Guide: Routes, Altitude and What the Trek Really Costs
Gongga — Minya Konka to the Tibetans who live around it — is 7,556 m, more than a kilometre higher than any …
Hiking & Trekking
Mount Siguniang Travel Guide: Three Valleys, Four Peaks and Routes
Mount Siguniang is the Chinese name for Four Girls Mountain, a chain of four summits in western Sichuan that …
Mountains
Hidden Mountains in China: 10 Peaks That Western Itineraries Skip
The mountains foreign visitors skip are not secret. Chinese hikers know them, photograph them and queue for …
Hiking & Trekking
Best Trekking Routes in China: Five Classic Multi-Day Treks
China has the terrain for world-class trekking and almost none of the infrastructure signals that hikers from …
Nature & Parks
Kanas Lake: Hemu, Baihaba and the Autumn Window in Xinjiang
Kanas is a long, cold lake at about 1,370 m in the far north of Xinjiang, roughly 24 km from end to end and …
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38 guides
Mountains
Peak-by-peak guides to China's most storied mountains, from the Five Great Mountains to the …
19 guidesTravel Planning
Visas, transport, best seasons, budgets and packing — the practical side of a China mountain …
15 guidesHiking & Trekking
Routes, difficulty ratings, altitude advice and gear for hiking and trekking in China.
14 guidesFood & Culture
Mountain food, local crafts and the culture that grows around China's peaks.
13 guidesSacred Mountains
Pilgrimage paths, monasteries and the sacred peaks of Buddhist and Taoist China.
9 guidesNature & Parks
National parks, nature reserves, gorges and lakes worth planning a whole trip around.
3 guidesMountain Villages
Ancient towns, stone villages and slow stays in China's highlands.
3 guidesRegions
Regional guides to Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Tibet, East China and beyond.
Why China Hill
One country, a lifetime of mountains
China has more than 200 mountains above 5,000 metres, thousands of kilometres of pilgrimage paths, and villages that have never appeared in a tour brochure. China Hill exists to make that landscape legible: where to go, how hard it is, when to travel, and what you will actually see.
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