On the last day of our return journey from the Jiguan Mountains, we were traversing a diff estimated to be 90 degrees up and 50m in height. The path itself was only about 20cm wide and a torrent of water raged below us. I was the heaviest of our team, weighing 110kg, and my teammates nicknamed me “Kung Fu Panda”. Yet the Kung Fu Panda in me had tremendous difficulty climbing along the switchbacks along the cliffs, which greatly resembled a monkey path.
Our guide, a slim man, took the lead, and when he reached the safe resting point of the most difficult yet breathtaking portion of this path I followed behind him. At the middle of this portion, I hesitated, firmly holding onto the rocks, petrified to advance. Nonetheless, I had to continue and was almost on par with our guide when one of the straps of my 20kg backpack broke. If not for holding onto a shrub shoot as big as my thumb, the load would have brought me straight down the cliff and into the frigid waters below.
My backpack swayed several times before it calmed down while my tense body quickly regained balance. The guide, just ahead of me, turned and took the pack from me. I don’t remember how I managed to complete the rest of the path, but I do remember that when I came to a safe place, I threw myself down, trembling all over, my heart thumping violently for a lengthy time.
This is the greatest danger I went through in the 4th Census.
