Life on the Mountain

Wolong, China

 

The mountains of Sichuan

Getting to Wolong from the Chengdu is a drive of contrasts — not just from bend to bend, but from meter to meter. As a car hurtles up the winding slopes, on one side are steep cliffs plunging to the roaring Pitiao River. The river doesn’t meander like most American bodies of water. This one roars, as if its life purpose is to pummel the enormous boulders that have chosen to get in its way. Its muddy color comes from the acres of soil that wash down from the mountain.

On the other side is rock. Or tightly wedged villages, or cabbage plots with a line of corn insinuating itself between rows. Or a cement factory, or a string of open-air shops, or Tibetan children walking home from school — all but in the path of the speeding cars. Or laborers with hoes and shovels thrown over their shoulders. Or the bounty of a coal mine, dumped down the mountain to where it can be reached.

The Wolong National Nature Reserve

Established in 1963, the reserve covers an area of about 200,000 hectares. There are more than 4,000 different species recorded in the reserve.

Vanessa, along with her two Chinese research assistants, Lao Yang and Lao Fan, live in the research station called Wuyipeng (say OOO-ee-pong). Lao Wang is the station’s caretaker, and Vanessa says he’s also a master chef.

Wuyipeng is in the bamboo jungle of reserve about an hour-and-a-half hike up the switchbacks of a steep mountain. The research station was established in the 1980s in a collaboration with United States and Chinese researchers and has sheltered scores of panda researchers since it’s in the heart of panda habitat. In 2001, the station was refurbished and had electricity (at least until the earthquake), a bathroom, a brand-new phone line and a TV. Still no Internet yet, but hope continues to spring eternal. To send us her journal updates, Vanessa must trudge down the mountain.

Logistics – everything’s a hike

This is Vanessa’s second winter there. Wolong is hot in the summer, and she enjoys the beauty of the first look at snow. Wolong has many deciduous trees, so this will be another look at the forest barren of much of its leaf cover.

To use Internet to send us her video files and diary updates, Vanessa must trudge down the mountain. By arranging times, we can call her on her cell phone. She can’t make out going calls to the United States.