Western Sichuan: Four Sisters To Gongga Glaciers – 10 Days

Visit the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding early, when the pandas are at their most active. Watch them feeding on bamboo, climbing and dozing in their enclosures, and look out for the red pandas too.

Drive across the city to Wenshu Monastery, the best-preserved Buddhist monastery in Chengdu and still an active place of worship. Walk through its courtyards among incense smoke and chanting, then stop for lunch, perhaps at a vegetarian restaurant near the temple.

Spend the afternoon in People’s Park, where locals dance, sing, practise calligraphy and play cards. Sit down in a traditional teahouse with a bowl of jasmine tea and watch city life go by, perhaps with an ear cleaner doing the rounds between the tables.

Drive northwest from Chengdu to the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, built in the third century BC during the Qin dynasty and still watering the Chengdu plain today. Walk across the swaying bridges and see how the engineers divided the Min River without a dam. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Continue by private car into the mountains, climbing over a high pass and on to the small town at the foot of Mount Siguniang, whose four snowy peaks give it its name, the Mountain of the Four Sisters.

Settle into your hotel and enjoy dinner in the mountain air.

Enter Changping Valley, one of the three valleys of the Mount Siguniang area, and walk along the boardwalk and forest trails beside the stream. Pass old Tibetan prayer stones and meadows with views up to the snow peaks. Yak graze in the clearings and the air smells of pine and woodsmoke.

Stop for lunch, then continue as far as suits you along the valley, through larch and spruce forest with the mountains framing the view.

Return to Siguniang town and spend the rest of the afternoon at leisure, with time to wander the main street or rest before dinner.

Drive into Shuangqiao Valley, another of the Siguniang valleys, where a road follows a long valley of rock peaks, forest and alpine lakes. Stop at viewpoints along the way and walk short stretches of boardwalk. The valley takes its name from its twin bridges, and the scenery changes with every bend, from meadows to sheer granite walls.

Descend by road towards Danba and visit Jiaju Tibetan Village, a hillside village of large stone and timber houses with white walls and red-trimmed eaves, scattered across terraced fields. It is often counted among the most beautiful villages in China.

Stay the night in Danba.

Visit Suopo, where tall stone watchtowers rise from the villages along the valley. These towers, some built centuries ago, are among the most distinctive sights of this region. Walk a little way into the village with your guide to see them up close, rising high above the walnut trees and fields.

Drive west over a high pass onto the plateau to the Tagong Grasslands, a wide open landscape of pasture and nomad tents with snow peaks in the distance. Visit Tagong Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist temple in the small town, with its golden roofs and white stupas.

Overnight in Tagong.

Set out on the high mountain roads south from Tagong, with views of Mount Gongga, the highest peak in Sichuan, on clear days. Pass through Xinduqiao, known for its landscapes of rivers, poplars and grassland.

Continue over the mountains and down to Moxi Ancient Town, a small town at the foot of Gongga. Walk its old street and visit the church of 1918, a reminder of the missionaries who once came here. In the evening the old street is quiet, and the snow peaks may glow above the rooftops.

Settle into your hotel in Moxi.

Enter Hailuogou Glacier Forest Park, which protects the forest and glaciers on the eastern slopes of Mount Gongga. Take the park’s cable car up to a viewpoint above the glacier and walk the boardwalks for close views of the ice.

Continue on the walkways through the forest, and look out for the great icefall, one of the most impressive in China. Rhododendron, fir and moss-hung forest line the paths, and the air is cool and fresh. Return to Moxi in the late afternoon for a relaxed evening.

Drive back east from Moxi to Chengdu, coming down from the mountains to the green Sichuan plain. It is a long but scenic drive, and a good moment to look back on the mountains and villages you have seen.

Spend the rest of the day at leisure, perhaps shopping in the city, visiting a sight you have not yet seen, or treating yourself to a hotpot dinner to round off the journey.

After breakfast, your driver takes you to Chengdu airport for your onward flight.