Chasing the Nomads
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
1
45
354
Trip End
Ongoing
Baimaxueshan,
China
Saturday, October 1, 2005
Our plan was to film a story of the nomads on their journey back to their hometown, before the first snows of October might make travel over the high pass difficult and before the pasture grass turned brown.
Already, the hillsides were losing their lush green color. Flowers were withering, seeds were dispersing, the air was crisp during the day, misty in the mornings, and the livestock was itching to leave for better forage. Already, Gazong's livestock left without him for the village, sending him desperately rushing after his cows. In this case it was not clear if the cows or the people were doing the herding. We'd have to catch up with him later.
The remaining villagers prepared the last batches of cheese and butter, gathering their things for the day-long journey. Waking up at the crack of dawn, we left shortly thereafter in a misty rain. The trails were muddy; filming would be difficult.
Over 100 cows, a flock of sheep, and a dozen nomads left their summer home, heading across their pastureland, through forests and shrublands, across streams, and up a steep switchback to the high pass.
We accompanied this convoy, rushing ahead for shots, trailing behind for others, waiting on the side for another angle. Up the switchbacks, continually passing the nomads, filming, then passing them for another shot became tiring. Since two days earlier I was at sea level for over a week, by the time we reached the 14,200 foot pass, I was tired, hungry, wet, and cold.
At this point Communication Breakdown struck. The plan supposedly was to follow the nomads along the dirt road back to their village. We would use the WWF Toyota Landcruiser to conserve our energy and to move ahead of the nomads. Unfortunately we found the vehicle behind two trucks loading the nomad's gear. We lost track of the nomads.
As we later discussed, the breakdown occurred when Xiao Lin forgot to tell me that the nomads didn't follow the road as we supposedly talked about but instead stayed high over several passes. Once the trucks cleared, we headed along the road. We located the nomads hiking in the alpine zone over 1,000 vertical feet above us through a tangled forest of Rhododendron, shrubs, oaks, and fir. To capture the story on film, we needed to give it a go.
But the going was tough. We were moving slowly through the brush which seemed to want to grab our feet and trip us at any occasion. The nomads rounded the corner out of sight.
By the time we reached their trail, they were long gone. We had missed our shots for the rest of the day and returned with only half the footage, bruised and tired legs, an empty stomach, and cold-numbed hands.
There was hope, however: the nomads did not return to the village but instead camped at another pasture, one hour above the villages. We would get another chance.
