…is a Chinese mountain road 30 years in the making?
The first attempt resulted in a trail that zigzags along the cliff.
Only daredevils would take it. Villagers once tried to drive 27 pigs to an outside market, and 13 plummeted off the cliff before they had gone a kilometer.
They chose another route the second time but were halted midway by impossible logistical difficulties. Wolves, rather than supplies, started entering the village on this unfinished path.
On the third try, they drilled a hole in a giant rock that turned out to be so hard that it would not yield gravel.
A technician from the transport bureau said it would take 80 years to build the road at this speed. The hole was later used as a sheep shelter.
In 1982, a new design was conceived: This road would spiral across the surface of a cliff, with windows along the way to remove the crushed rocks. Every villager pitched in.
What scarce assets they had – including dowries for soon-to-be newlyweds – they sold to buy tools and dynamite.A band of young men spent years dangling from ropes to dig into the rock face. Women provided backup support, including cooking and sewing.
From the China Daily.
3 Responses
Too bad that a similar road was already used for the opening scene of “Quantum of Solace”. Otherwise I could see this as a location for a James Bond film.
Looks really, really similar to the tunnel road in Zion National Park. With the windows, red rock and everything.
I wonder how they got so far away in the first place. Perhaps their grandfathers traveled these difficult roads to escape the rest of humanity (tax collectors, bandits etc). Now their grandchildren are trying just as hard to connect to the rest of humanity.