Escape of the Leaping Tiger

On our way from Lijiang to Shangri-la we encountered one of the world's most amazing natural wonders, the deepest river gorge on earth. Flanked on each side by the Jade Snow and Dragon Snow Mountains, both over 18,000 feet tall, the Leaping Tiger Gorge has been worn down by the River of Golden Sand for five million years. Legend says that there was once an enormous tiger that roamed the terraces which flank the Jade Snow Mountain, but the poor tiger was relentlessly pursued by hunters. One day, as the tiger was running for his life, a large rock dislodged from the mountains and landed in the narrowest part of the river. The tiger was able to leap the gorge using the rock and forever escape his pursuers. At it's narrowest point, the Leaping Tiger Gorge is still 100 feet across. No wonder the tiger was able to get away.

Given it's immensity and the water's phenomenal flow rate, it is not surprising that the Chinese government is planning to build eight dams across the Leaping Tiger Gorge to harness the river's hydroelectric power. While losing such a natural wonder is heartbreaking from a preservation standpoint, the real tragedy is that the resulting flood will destroy dozens of villages, displace millions, and cover some of the most fertile land in the region. In a country where only 10% of the land is productive for farming such a loss of agricultural land is potentially devastating to the rural poor for whom the price of transported food is often prohibitively expensive.