5000m Solo Accent - Heavenly Lake

  TianShan Mountain, China
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Tian Chi, which translates to Heavenly Lake is a picturesque turquoise lake 2000 meters up in the Tian Chi mountain range. Its is surrounded by a number of beautiful peaks, some of which are snow covered and the highest being Bogeda Feng (Peak of God) which stands at 5445 meters.

Heavenly Lake

I arrived with the two girls which I had been in Dunghaung with and two more which I met at the hostel in Urumqi. We all headed round to the North East side of the lake which was about a hour walk and alot more secluded away from the busy touristy entrance. We stayed with a really nice guy called Rashit and his family who were all from Kazakhstan. The setting was perfect, we had a cozy little yurt/ger tent set back about 100meters from the lake shore, surrounded by huge lush green

View from the top of out valley

valleys filled with pine trees and a view across the lake of the huge snow capped mountains. Before the sunset I could not resist climbing the nearby valley, I followed some goat tracks up the side which became surprisingly steep until I had to use both hands and climb up the rocks to the top. The view was amazing, it almost had a Switzerland kind of feel with the snowy mountains and the alpine forests.

Heavenly Lake

After this we all had dinner which was prepared by Rashit's wife and was quite basic but really nice. Before night fall heard thunder which was followed by heavy rain which lasted all night.
When I got up in the morning and looked out side the Ger, half off the valley which was yesterday dry had turned into a river, flowing down from the mountains. This made going to the toilet tricky you were either faced with a huge jump over the river from rock to

Clouds forming

rock or wet feet. I set of for a days trek with some bread from Rashit up the valley. The valley was not steep but made difficult by the amount of rain, the tree rots were very slippery along with the muddy paths. As soon as I made it through the alpine forest, it really opened up and the view was again great. I walked along the green banks, up and down for hours until I had to descend where I crossed a knee deep river then headed back up through the forest.

Sky of lead

This time there was no path but this actually made it better to grip. I headed up for a long time once out of the forest, I checked the altimeter on my watch and was already at 4500meters, it was starting to get cold and there was snow and ice in between rocks which were sheltered form the sun. I headed up the last 500 meters to the top of the peak, although there were a few higher around me but all unclimbable without rope and

In the clouds

another person. From here I could see the cumulus clouds which earlier had been innocently sailing above, ominously gathering on the other side of the lake, blocking out the rays of sunlight and turning the sly into a grim fortress of lead with a certain wrath. I decided it was time to descend, and quick, the boulders of black cloud tumbled towards me, fulminating with thunder! I was nearly at the forest line when it started to rain but luckily made it under the shelter of a pine before the heavens really opened. I sheltered there for a bit and made a little fire to dry out my

Me on the Glacier @ Heavenly Lake

clothes and make some toast from the hard bread I had ben given. The rain didn't last long and after this I continued to head down then circumnavigated the lake and also walked up a small glacier. Had another nice meal and a swim/wash in the cold lake and spend another cozy night in the Ger with the girls and Rashit wife home cooked food.