Day One: Zhonglu Village

We left our guesthouse in Siguniangshan Town early in the morning, arranging a lift through a local ride-sharing app. The driver arrived in a modern electric car and immediately launched us onto the winding mountain road towards Danba (丹巴;). The route was beautiful but terrifyingly narrow, carved into cliffs that dropped sharply to the rushing river below. He drove with a confidence that bordered on recklessness; I spent much of the journey with my eyes closed, praying we’d reach the valley in one piece.

When the car finally slowed, I couldn’t wait to get out. After zigzagging up a steep set of mountain switchbacks, we had finally arrived at Zhonglu Village (中路藏寨) in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (甘孜州). Set on a steep slope above the Dadu River (大渡河), this is where the green valleys of Sichuan meet the rising edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

Stepping out of the car, the first things you notice are the many stone monoliths rising from the surrounding hills. Zhonglu is famous for its ancient stone watchtowers (古碉楼) built from rough-cut stone and timber. While these towers once dotted the whole Gyarong region, Zhonglu has preserved the largest and most varied collection; some square, others hexagonal, standing like sentinels over the valley.

After dropping our bags at the guesthouse, we spent the afternoon wandering through the village. The origins of the watchtowers are murky – some may be over a thousand years old, and they served as everything from defensive bunkers to signal posts to ritual protectors. They are a visible reminder that this area was once a patchwork of small kingdoms, a frontier zone of shifting alliances and constant vigilance.

Despite this history, Zhonglu feels very much alive. It isn’t a museum behind glass. Families still live in the traditional white Gyarong houses clustered around the ancient stone bases, and terraced fields still tumble down toward the river. Preservation work is ongoing, but the towers remain part of daily life rather than a sealed-off heritage site.

We saw the reality of that rugged terrain near the end of our circular walk. The way was partially blocked by the recent collapse of a massive stone embankment and the road beneath it, not entirely surprising given how steep the mountain is here. Facing a long backtrack to get around it, we decided to brave the gap, inching our way slowly along the crumbling edge of the collapsed road.

Day Two: The Hidden Path to Suopo

Emboldened by our success in Zhonglu, we decided to skip the car ride for the next leg of our journey and hike directly to Suopo Village (梭坡), crossing a high pass that separates the two valleys.

The route isn’t marked on any official map; however, we had found a description of it online: a “bushwhacking” trail used by locals and intrepid hikers (map).

Our guesthouse owner in Zhonglu, initially sceptical of our plan, eventually warmed to the idea. He kindly drove us up a winding track to the trailhead, saving us an hour of aimless wandering through the village maze. Pointing a finger toward a dense thicket of green on the ridgeline, he gave us a final wave and drove off.

The trail gained nearly 450 m in elevation up a steep wall of switchbacks, but it wasn’t too hard going. The real challenge began on the other side of the 3,050 m pass, where the “trail” began to dissolve. The online guides hadn’t exaggerated; the path was incredibly overgrown.

We found ourselves fighting through waist-high scrub and thorny bushes, relying on faint animal tracks and GPS to ensure we hadn’t drifted off course. It was silent up there, save for the wind and the crunch of our boots. We were miles from anywhere, suspended between the deep gorge of the Dadu River below and the snow-capped peaks above.

Once we reached the other side, we were faced with an interminable hike back down along dusty switchback roads. It was a mind-numbing trudge, but two hours into the walk, a passing farmer on a rickety old tractor kindly stopped and gave us a lift the rest of the way down to the main road (probably saving us two more hours of walking).

By the time we reached Suopo, legs scratched and clothes snagged, it felt as though we’d walked straight through the footnotes of a history book. Ancient kingdoms, crumbling roads, and mysterious trails that locals shrug at – it’s all there, but in a low-key, very Sichuan sort of way. We came expecting big mountains and old towers; we left mostly impressed that the tractor didn’t fall apart before we made it to the bottom.