Matt goes for a daunder in Kuandian

Master of the improbable, Matt Ryan, turns up in some of the least likely places; I should know as I’ve been walking in a few of them with him. Just in case you should find yourself in Kuandian with a few hours to spare, you could do worse than follow in Matt’s pioneering footsteps…  The walk described below takes you up nearby Zhengrong Shan, which rises to around 1200m. In the unlikely event that anyone reading this description ever finds themselves actually undertaking this walk then you only need take one bottle of water as there is a lovely fresh stream on the route.

The main problem with walking in China, apart from getting there and the nearly impenetrable language, is the absence of maps. That means any walk can offer greater surprises than ones in well-mapped parts of the world, and far more frustrations, as paths which seemed promising evaporate in dense woodland or at the end of a valley.

Here’s a walk I devised on a recent visit to Kuandian, a small town in Liaoning province, Manchuria, maybe 30 miles from the North Korean border. There’s no earthly reason why anyone who’s not Chinese should ever go there, and as a result none of them ever do. Still, if you do happen to have a free day there, follow the instructions below and I expect you’ll have a fine walk. I can’t guarantee it as China is changing so fast. However, they seem to be leaving their mountain woodlands alone, and Kuandian county – a little bigger than Devon – is largely covered by steep wooded hills which rise to nearly 1300m. So there’s a fair chance this walk will be unmolested by “development” for a while yet.

Go to the N end of the main N-S road of town, the Tianhuashan Lu and enter the park called Beishan Gongyuan (North Mountain Park)

Take note of the stylish Bambi lights…

Note the roof of a little pavilion in the wooded hillside above the park. You’ll be making for that in a moment. First head up a long flight of stairs…

…to a monument to the glorious wars of independence and against American imperialism in Korea.

Turn R and follow a stone wall to its end where there is a path uphill with a red brick wall on your R.

In a moment the wall stops going uphill. Turn half R and you will come to the pavilion.

From here take the path going most steeply uphill.  In a moment you reach another pavilion.  Keep going uphill.  It doesn’t terribly matter which path you take – they will all eventually take you to the E-W ridge just N of you.

In a few minutes you’ll be on a spur of this ridge, climbing roughly NW.  The path rises through scrubby oak cover until you emerge after some 20 minutes on the ridge on a rock with fine views S to the extinct volcano known as Huang Yi Shan – Yellow Chair Mountain – which is topped by a fine (modern – I haven’t found one pre-war building yet in the whole county) pagoda.

Soon you’ll see a rock ahead of and above you, festooned with prayer flags.  There’s quite a rock scramble to get up there – the first tricky moment of the walk.

You are now high above a wooded valley to your N.  You shall be descending by this valley on your return.

After the prayer rock the path is narrower but still clear.  In 5 minutes however you reach one of the few points where it is not obvious.  You have descended a short way between rocks, and are suddenly confronted by a nose of rock 2 or 3 metres high.  Climb straight up this (easy enough) to continue the path.  Soon the path drops and you get your fisrt good view of your destination – the Zhengrong Shan – Steep and Lofty Mountain – topped by a TV tower.

After another 15 minutes the path is joined from the L by electric cables coming uphill.  Foresters have cleared a stretch of the way ahead.  In a moment a pylon appears ahead.

Fork R just before the pylon.  You can now hear the stream clearly on your R.  The path now stays roughly on the level and after a minute or two the stream can be seen some 20m below you.  A little path forks off R to take you to it.  This is a good place to replenish your water bottles.  You’ll return this way later, but now return to the path 20m above the stream and turn R to continue up the side of the valley.  The path soon ascends but gets more and more overgrown.  Just push on in the same direction and you’ll suddenly come out on the dirt road to the TV tower.  Make a note (and a mark on the ground) where you came out as you’ll be going back that way.

Turn L up the dirt road until you come to the first (R-turning) hairpin.  Leave the road by going straight on at the bend and you come to a little graveyard.  At the topmost stone I leant down and was quite certain I could hear melancholy, repetitious chanting coming, I fancied, from a chamber deep underground.

Continue through the woods up the ridge.  soon you come to the next hairpin, where in mid-June a bunch of glorious orange lilies were blooming .

Again, it is easy to find a path to cut up to the 3rd hairpin.  Don’t try to continue cutting corners from here – you’ll only come to a barbed wire fence around the TV tower grounds.  Instead, continue up the road.  At the next (leftward) bend there is a small mast.  Just to its R, a little off the road, is a bush of wild lilac flowers which when it flowers in June is far sweeter and more delicate than the rather coarse garden shrub.  From here turn off the road and up the hillside once again and you will soon find a mast with a yellow hut.  To the L of this there is, rather improbably, a wooden door between stretches of barbed wire.Go through the door and continue uphill to a concrete tower.  This is disused and easy to enter by a window.  The tower has metal shutters which bang alarmingly, but don’t worry.  Climb to the top of the tower for outstanding views in all directions.  In the furthest SE a line of hills will be in North Korea .  There is a delicious and tempting valley to the SW which leads, after a steep scramble down through the woods to what looks like a large farm (in fact a distillery) beyond which you leave the valley and can return to Kuandian by the main road west of the town.

Our route however now returns to the stream where you gathered water earlier.  So: down to the small mast.  Down the road to the next hairpin.  Cut down to the next hairpin with the lilies (in June).  Down again to the cemetery (the underground monks were still chanting their monotonous refrain).  Along the road to the marker I hope you left.  Beat through the undergrowth to find the path to the stream.

Now continue down the stream past a waterfall and pool below an overhanging rock.

The stream tumbles steeply down between rocks here.  Soon the path turns L for maybe 30m to join a subsidiary stream.  Here the path jags sharply R and drops down a gully to return to the main stream.  The scramble is rewarded with another waterfall.

From here on down for quite a way there are only shadows of a path.  Often one just has to play stepping stones.  The forest here appears entirely pristine with a great variety of trees, mostly relatives of familiar European species – oaks, ash, maples, birch, walnut, hazel, alder, dogwood.  In the heart of this little Eden is a grove of wild magnolias (flowering in June again) overhanging the stream.

After a while the path reappears and soon after that one reaches the dirt road again.Turn R and follow the road downhill.  After a mile or so a big house with a bright red roof appears ahead.  Shortly after it appears, some 150m before the house, a clear path strikes R uphill through a larch plantation.  Follow this over the hill (not high here!) for a short cut back to Kuandian.  Once heading downhill again there is a fork before a plantation of young sweet chestnut trees.  Take the R fork to contour W along the hillside.  Soon the path drops with some cottages on the R.  Turn R immediately you have passed the cottages and continue contouring as best you can to reach the park from which you set off.