Eight people, the oldest 82, and the top of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain
“We made it to the top.”
Their worry
Eight people, three of them over 70 and the oldest 82, with two more just past 60. The organiser had been to Yunnan four times before and knew what the days cost in walking, so the brief was detailed: hotels within walking distance of the old town entrances, three twin rooms and two single rooms in every city, a licensed guide who could take the older ones one way while the rest went another, no shopping stops, and every shuttle inside the big parks included. The top of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain was the one thing nobody wanted to compromise on.
What we changed
The two Dali nights moved to a lake-view hotel on Erhai, and the Lijiang hotel changed to one a few hundred metres from the old town gate with luggage transfer arranged at the gate. Napahai came out to make that day work, and Songzanlin Monastery stayed in, because most of the group had never been to Tibet and wanted to see it. The two included meals were dropped to pay for upgrading all eight to the Glacier Park cable car at 4,680 m instead of the lower one, and the uphill elevator at Tiger Leaping Gorge was added for the climb back up. Departures were moved to 8.30 most mornings.
On the mountain
The cable car was booked for the 9 am slot, so the group left the old town at 7.30 and was on the mountain early. Four of them walked the last stretch up to 4,680 m while the rest went down by cable car. Everyone met again at the lower cable car station at 11.30, then had lunch before the show. The Impression Lijiang show was moved to 2.50 pm so it still fitted, and the walk from Baishui River down to Blue Moon Valley came after it. On other days they rode horses around Yuhu Village to Longnv Lake, walked the Xizhou market for the local food, and walked Shaxi old town on the way back to Lijiang.
How they felt
Halfway up, the message that came back to us was four words: "攻頂成功了！" The same afternoon they wrote about running into old friends from Toastmasters at the mountain, two of them over 70 and also climbing. Before the trip they had already said they would send their colleague to us for a two week family trip in October.