Secrets of the Yangtze
3-Day Tiger Leaping Gorge and Stone Village Hiking Tour
The great mountain ranges in the western corner of Yunnan Province create so much incredible scenery, which attracts hikers to explore. The Haba Mountain and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain massifs, which both rise to more than 5,000 meters (16,000 feet) above sea level, narrow the Jinsha (upper Yangtze) River and create one of the most magnificent gorges in China.
On this 3-day Tiger Leaping Gorge and Stone Village hiking tour, you will not only experience the great gorge and snow mountains, but also discover hidden Stone Village and a best-kept secret of the Jinsha River.
Tour 'Wow' Points
Essence of Tiger Leaping Gorge — Upper Trekking Route
Climb to the top of the 28 Bends and overlook the gorge and rushing river.
Your 15-km (10-mile) trek will be accompanied by Jade Dragon Snow Mountain scenery.
Unlock a Less-Traveled and Wilder Route — Mid-Height Trekking Route
A wild waterfall may try to block your way!
Be careful trekking on narrow paths between steep cliffs.
Challenge yourself on the "sky ladder" with steep slope of 70°.
Visit a Castle on the Cliff — Baoshan Stone Village
Trek to the village and see how Naxi people live in isolation.
People living there use the stone to the fullest — stairs, tables, beds...
China Highlights' Special Discovery Experience
Discover the best-kept secret of the Jinsha River. Hike to find an exclusive view, which is not seen by most visitors.
Enjoy a beer (or other drink) prepared by us on Halfway Guesthouse's viewing terrace for a beautiful sunset experience.
Discover real reviews of Highlights Travel Family's best-rated service across trusted platforms.
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Excellent first trip to Lijiang
Excellent first trip to Lijiang. Our guide Alice was very kind and patient and also very accommodating with last minute changes and itinerary change given one of the places we were supposed to go to was shut for maintenance work. She explained everything to us and also answered our many many random questions! more
Jan 2024, Customer
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Li Jiang is amazingly pretty
Li Jiang is amazingly pretty. Very scenic and unforgettable. Our guide Alice has done wonderful job explaining the history and culture. She is also very service minded. We love our hotel that China Highlights arranged. The old town preserved well the Chinese culture and is a must place to visit. more
Jan 2024, Khim Boo
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Professional
Professional, caring and well spoken tourguide Alice! She is able to adapt well to customer’s requests. Keep up the good work! more
Jan 2024, Woan Na Ng
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Awesome 1st trip to Lijiang
Alice is super helpful, knowledgeable and flexible with changes. She and Mr Huang took very good care of us during our stay in Lijiang. We are grateful to have them as our guides. Hope we can come back to explore more next time. more
Dec 2023, SYW
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Best China Tour
We had the most remarkable tour with China Highlights. Not only everything was perfect, but we felt, in every instance,that Leeky, our tour organizer and all the guides (Bree, Alice, Sophia and Nixon) truly cared about us and did their best to make the trip memorable. more
Dec 2023, SL
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Amazing Lijiang
It was our first time in Lijiang and the trip was absolutely incredible. We had a blast and made unforgettable memories. Alice was thoughtful, patient and took beautiful photographs. more
Dec 2023, Slim
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Lijiang Tour with Alice
My husband and I arrived in Lijiang after Dali. We met Alice, our new tour guide for the next two days. Alice is a compassionate person with a heart full of love and care. She makes sure we dress warmly before taking our tours to the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the Tiger Leaping Gorge.Alice is well-spoken about the culture of local people in Lijiang. During our visit to the Naxi ethnic community, we learned how to make and sample the Naxi pancake and tea with Yak butter. We felt it was a rewarding experience to learn about the livelihood of people as we tour.Many thanks to China Highlights for arranging our traveling itinerary in Lijiang. more
Nov 2023, AL
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Our trip to Yunnan
Alice is very personable, warm, friendly and shared with us many of their cultures and stories. Pema is very energetic and accompany us for the half day hike in the tiger leaping gorge.We would definitely recommend China Highlights to anyone for their holiday in China! more
Nov 2023, TAN YIDA
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Our trip to Li Jiang and Shaxi Yunnan
We arrived at Lijiang on 9/8. We enjoyed the time in Lijiang a lot with good hotel selection and a well planned program. We went onto Shaxi for the local singing festival of the local minority groups. It was a fantastic experience. What makes the trip most memorable is our guide Alice. She took excellent care of us, anticipating our every need. She was personable, warm and very knowledgeable. We shared many laughters and traded stories. She brought smiles to us during the entire trip. We will specifically ask for her again when we come back to Yunnan. Five star service. more
Sep 2023, Consumer
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Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shangri-la
We would like to thank China Highlights Travel for planning and organizing our China hiking trip. Roger Li (Trip Planner) was really prompt in all correspondences and helped us to fine tune our travel details. We are a party of 4 and had multiple hiking destinations in mind in the beginning. Roger gave us details of each option and we finally decided to go hiking in the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. In addition, Roger helped us to add itinerary in Lijiang and Shangri-la after the hiking. Really looking forward to our China hiking trip in October! more
Sep 2023, Joyce Lee
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We love China
From the beginning we had a trustfull knowlegeable base of communication, started with Lukas the tour advisor and guide around Guilin and continued with the other guides in the other locations. Shanghai FU, Zhangjiajie Emili, Xián Juanli, Kunmimg Nen ,Lijiang Luzhuoying, Chongqing ??, Yangtze, Haikou ?? and Beijing Chengang. We were totaly positivly impressed about the overall service during our time in China. We felt save and wellcomed at any time. We had every day our individual highlight. For example, breathless nature, extraordinary hotels, historical buildings and places, well tasting food and social contacts on the streets. All our tour guides and drivers made a professional customer orientated job and supported us in the best possible way. Even if we want to make changes on short notice they made it happen. We spent a remarkable and unforgetable time in China and been very thankful to China Highlights to create this moments in time for us. more
Jun 2023, Karlheinz Potuznik
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Unforgettable Yunnan!
Jack Li , our tour guide at LiJiang, took great care of us when we climbed Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and suffered high altitude issues. At Dali, our tour guide Nancy Li doubled up as our photographer and speaks excellent English and entertained us with her rich knowledge of Chinese history. We had a wonderful time. more
Apr 2023, April Lee
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Thank you for such a wonderful traveling experience!
We have Jack Lee in our Lijiang trip he was such a considerate and kind tour guide. He is very knowledgeable and he accommodated all our requirement. We were fortunate to have such a nice local tour guide. I had altitude sickness and he really cared. Our private driver Mr Tang is very safe and patient. He is compliant and cares for our safety all the time. He is very humorous and gave us so much laughter. He was also very caring towards me. more
Apr 2023, Hazel T
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Cultural and scenic beauty second to none!
I would highly recommend this tour to Lugu Lake to everyone and anyone! The tour guide Jack taught me more in two days about minority cultures, Chinese history, and the amazing natural history and geography of Yunnan and the Lijiang area. As well, the drive to Lugu Lake requires an expert - and Mr Wang is an expert! (From someone who has crossed the Rockies at least 20 times) As a single woman travel who still doesn’t have great Chinese it was a flawless experience - from the communications, accommodation and breathtaking scenery and cultural experiences. Please book and go! more
Feb 2023, Connie VH
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We have been travelling around Yunnan…
We have been travelling around Yunnan Province for 8 days and it’s been amazing. The culture, the food, the people’s kindness, all these things made our trip unforgettable. Especially our guide Nancy! The most helpful and friendly guide we could have. We really appreciate her knowledge about the local history and the culture. She’s really amazing and we strongly recommend her services. more
Mar 2022, Danielle Toledo
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Awesome Yunnan trip with Nancy
We had a 6-day tour with guide Nancy around Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-La in Yunnan. She’s very professional and experienced guide that made our tour far exceed expectations. It was a pleasure to have her as our tour guide. We strongly recommend her. Thank you! more
Mar 2022, Rodrigo
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One of the best things I’ve done in China
One of the best things I’ve done in China. Being that I am pretty well traveled in China this Experience was so different from the others. Each city provided a different aspect of the culture, local traditions and beauty that China has to offer. Our Tour guide Nancy was amazing as she made our itinerary very well constructed and organized. She was there to make sure we were comfortable and happy. Her hyper energy and cheerfulness made us feel enthusiastic for the day. We are very satisfied with this trip and Nancy’s services that we will be sure to book again. more
Feb 2022, RoshR
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Lijiang Trip July 2021
Kudos to Alisa Liu from the agency who I must say was on hand almost 24/7 for requests and queries. Even though our trip was marred with the onset of the Typhoon In Fa with various flight and train cancellations but Alisa was quick to arrange for alternative solutions under the circumstances and made the most effort to make our journey as comfortable as possible whilst we made our way back to Shanghai. As for the itinerary, Alisa understands her clientele’s different needs very well and for the most part my expectations were met. I love private tours with a very relaxed itinerary and comfortable accommodation and some of us prefer more exclusive accommodation vs a packed itinerary trying to go to a hundred location type of tour. more
Aug 2021, Ida Suriani
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Summer holiday in Yunnan
After spending 5 nights in Dali visiting sights in our own time, Alice who was very friendly and helpful, accompanied us on our drive from Dali to Lijiang. She shared interesting facts about the local area and the things we had done. In Lijiang, we met our guide Peter. Peter did an amazing job taking care of us and showing us the beautiful sights for our 3 days. He was so kind, providing us with snacks each morning and always ensuring the food met my dietary requirements. He even picked up our last minute NAT results that we did before our departure late at night! His passion and dedication to his job was very impressive, and we would highly recommend him to our friends. more
Aug 2021, O6866ZGlaurag
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Amazing experience in Yunnan
Please bear in mind that booking tickets and actually getting to the sightseeing point is very challenging, especially during peak season. But with the help of our guides everything went smooth and silky. Thank you, China Highlights, for making our first trip to Yunnan an unforgettable and carefree adventure. It was a true relaxation without any headache or stress. We had nothing to worry about, except enjoying breathtaking beauty of Yunnan. more
Jul 2021, olya84
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Tour Map
Itinerary Quick Look
Here is a suggested itinerary. We are happy to customize a tour according to your interests.
In the morning, we will drive from Lijiang to Qiaotou Town, which is the entrance to Tiger Leaping Gorge. On day 1, we will hike 15 km in approximately five hours to Halfway Guesthouse.
Starting from Naxi Family Guesthouse, you will hike about 2 hours up the steep 28 Bends, where the views are remarkable.
After another 2–3 hours on the trail, we will arrive at Halfway Guesthouse, with a great view of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and overlooking the Jinsha River valley. Stay overnight in Halfway Guesthouse.
On day 2, we will get up in the early morning and hike down to Tina's Guest house (about 2 hours) passing through Guanyin Waterfall and Canyons on the way.
After another hour walking down the steep cliff, we will reach the bank of the Jinsha River and the middle of Tiger Leaping Gorge, where the dangerous 'starry sky reef' marks the narrowest part of the gorge and a tiger can easily jump over the Jinsha River.
Taking our private car to the pier, we'll cross the river to Daju Town for lunch. Then we'll head for Baoshan Stone Village, which will take about 3½ hours.
Explore Baoshan Stone Village, hike around the terraced fields, and climb over the ridge to find the incredible Taiziguan ('Prince Pass'), which will make you exclaim "wow". The Jinsha River is calm in this section, like a beautiful ribbon. The huge mountains dive into the river and form a very narrow gorge, and the Jinsha River flows towards you from this perilous pass. Why is it called 'Prince Pass'? Let your guide reveal the answer.
Transfer back to Lijiang in the afternoon.
Hotel Selection
—the Icing on the Cake
Boutique hotels are recommended to enrich your travel experience.
Price includes: