The Snow Mountains

One question has always puzzled us. The leader of the 2nd Army Group, He Long, was given his choice of routes north. He opted for the west route, the one we took last year, which turned out to be far, far more difficult than the east road. How could he have got it so wrong? Now we're over the two 'snow mountains' that the 6th immediately had to face, it makes more sense. The beginning of the west route is quite straightforward. Beyond the first few days, He Long had no way of knowing the details of the geography. Even today's maps don't feature at least half of the mountains we had to cross last year. But the difficulties of the east route were clear. Only two days north of Shangri-la the road climbs what is now known as the Small Snow Mountain. It then winds through thick forest for another couple of days before ascending the Big Snow Mountain, after which it remains above 4,000 meters for 20 km - the longest stretch of really high road of any section of the Long March. The mind can only boggle at how wild this country must have been in 1936. The road is still is terrible shape. He Long must have known how tough this stage was from local intelligence reports. He took what seemed the easy option - little knowing that the 6th would have put the hardest part behind them within a week, whereas He Long's men faced more than a month of severe deprivation and several peaks that put the Big Snow Mountain in the shade. The 2nd Army Group had to cross at least five passes higher than the Big Snow Mountain, plus another five considerably bigger than the Small Snow Mountain.

We stayed with Wuji （left） and his family at the foot of the Small Snow Mountain, whose pass is a measly 3,913 meters above sea level - making it less than 100 meters shorter than the most famous Long March mountain, Jiajinshan, crossed by Mao Zedong's 1st Front Army in June 1935. The family dressed up specially for this pic, by the way. Wuji is head of his little village of Shangcun, and has been for 10 years. Although there are only 41 households in the village, there are 12 Party members among them. Wuji's uncle was killed in the Tibetan Rebellion in the late 1950s - he was part of the pro-Communist Tibetan Self Defense Force.

This appalling restaurant captures the trade from buses that cross the snow mountains from Xiangcheng in Sichuan to Shangri-la in Yunnan. Yang Xiao reckoned the noodles the worst he had ever tasted - until I reminded him of Guanyinge in Hunan in 2005.

The climb up Big Snow Mountain, which is forested most of the way to the pass.

The whole area from Small Snow Mountain to the border is covered in damp forest （this is the rainy season） full of biting insects that take no notice even of Extra-strong Bushman repellent. This is just a tiny section of my bite collection - the largest, if not the itchiest, of my entire life. Red soldiers had a phrase which went something like, 'If you have enough lice, it doesn't itch.'

Close to the pass over Big Snow Mountain it began to bucket down. We were just pasing this half-built concrete hut, which became our home for the night. Later, we were told this hut was part of a failed philanthropic effort, in which 500,000 yuan had been donated to construct nice huts for the mountain herders. Eighty percent of this money was embezzled; the remainder went on bringing the concrete to this spot, where the hut was never finished.

Yang Xiao prepares an unenthusiastic Shajima for the final ascent of Big Snow Mountain.

And that's it. According to our records, the Snow Mountains are finished in just seven days. There's no snow because these aren't proper all-year snow-capped peaks. Big Snow Mountain is closed to traffic for at least two months every winter, though, and when the Reds climbed it in May it would certainly have been deep in the white stuff. We measured the pass at 4,333 meters above sea level.

The border between Yunnan and Sichuan. From this ridge we could look into both provinces. The Yunnan side was much prettier.

Yunnan is behind me and Huami.

The bugs didn't just bite me. Huami loves a good scratch.

With Ding Weidong, head of the No.18 Road Office, which looks after a 19 km stretch starting at the pass over Big Snow Mountain. Even when the road is cut, Ding and one other worker stay in the office for as long as it takes for the snow to melt.

And into the valley in Xiangcheng, which is famous for its white Tibetan houses - this is the only part of Tibet where this style is prevalent.

The first village in Xiangcheng is Ranwu, which features a hot spring developed at great expense and in very poor taste by the local Forestry Bureau.

But after 11 days on the road without a wash, we only had eyes for the water - and we had the whole place to ourselves! Ten yuan bought as much soaking as we liked.

The spring is only a few meters away from the pools, the smaller of which is the hottest hot spring I have ever used in China. The water was formerly monopolised by a local Living Buddha; after he had washed, the water flowed into a lower pool which the locals used.

I think this speaks for itself. This was also in Ranwu, painted on the outside of a private building.