22-Oct-2005 -- Accuracy: 3.4 m

Visited by Rainer Bartoschewitz

This is the first line hunting trip of Rainer Bartoschewitz

44°N 126°S is the second confluence point visited in Jilin Province. This point is about 50 km ENE of Jilin’s capital Changchun and 24.7 km E of the new Changchun international airport Longjia.

When I made acquaintance with confluence point hunting by a friend, I checked the still non-visited points. Surprisingly I learned that there was still no point visited in China’s Jilin province, where I am sometimes on business trips. So I had the idea to hunt confluence points accessable from Changchun on a free weekend. There are two within a distance of about 50 km from Changchun that are very close to roads according to the Russian Military Map 1:500,000.

On October 22nd, 2005, I saw a good chance to hunt my first confluence point. I could finish my work at noon on this sunny Saturday by about 0 °C. I asked the concierge of the hotel to explain a taxi driver where I want to go, that he should wait there for me for one to two hours and return me back to the hotel. A price was quickly fixed and we could start in the direction of Jilin City at about 12 a.m.

We followed that road in ENE direction to the village Erdaogou, where we left the main road in SSE direction. The small road was neighboured by a small river. We passed several quarries, a ginseng plantage and stopped the taxi in the village Hujatun, just only 1.1 km west of my target. Here I left the taxi and went the last step on feet.

I followed a dirty way through a recently harvested corn field. The way suddenly finished after some meters at a steep 4 m cliff of the above mentioned river. Luckyly it had only very few water and the villagers dug some step-like vugs in the sandy cliff, so that I could cross with rather dry feet and less dirty clothes. After the creek I passed mainly harvested corn fields and the working farmers probably thought: “what is this laowei doing here in this area?” The fields ended on the foot of a hill, that was covered by small trees and many bushy plants. Behind the hill a valley with few farm houses, a further small river, a dirty road, and harvested corn fields occurred. Just below the ridge of the hill I had a view to the about 300 m distanced confluence point.

I arrived the confluence point at about 1:40 p.m. It is located in the south of Guanjiagou village, just about 30 m east of Guanjiagou River and 10 m west of the unpaved road. As I learned during my visit, it is much easier accessable by car on the unpaved road.

The way back to my hotel in Changchun took about 1.5 hours.

In the hotel I planned my next project for Sunday morning: 44°N 125°E.