Although today's formally designated Shangri-La County lies in Yunnan, the fictional "Shangri-La" from Lost Horizon was likely inspired by the regions explored by Joseph Rock in western Sichuan, including Daocheng (Yading) and Muli.
After completing my hiking from Lugu Lake to Yading, I continued on with a backpacker I met along the way. Together, we finished the Yading small circle - a roughly 25 km circuit around the sacred Mount Xiannairi.
When I started hiking back in 2007, I was deeply touched by a thread of the ID "hw56" on doyouhike.com, who logged his years of walking solo across China. I admired him immensely.
One line from his journal has stayed with me ever since: "Look at those broad shoulders of Mount Xiannairi. They simply remind us how small our sorrows are beneath a sky this vast."
| Type | Hiking |
| Style | Accompanied |
| Altitude | 4000KM - 4700M |
| Distance | 25KM |
| Duration | 2 days |
| Date | Sep. 2012 |
| Place | Si Chuan |
