25-Jan-2005 -- 41 N – 115 E Hebei, China

Visit Date: January 25, 2005

This is the third of three points we visited in one day, along the 41N latitude.

After the second hunt for 41N 114E, we head to the next point, which is about 10 km north of Zhang-Jia-Kuo city where we need to go anyway to catch the express way back to Beijing. The question was do we have time to complete the hunt before dark?

The only highway going east brought us to a town call Zhang-Bei, about 12 km straight line distance to the third point we were looking for. We found an unpaved back road brought us to the highway leading to the point without going into Zhang-Jia-Kou. We reached the nearest point by road to this point at 4.30 pm, as sun started to go behind the hill.

From where we started to walk, the distance to the point was a little over 300 meters. At first we walk through a patch of dense shrubs and found we are at the bank of frozen river over 100 meters wide. As we walk across the ice, it became apparent that the CP point located about 30 meters on the river bank.

The exact location is about 15 meters above the river, on steep dirt slop. We are grateful that river is frozen solid and made it feasible to cross. Given the size of the river, it would be hard to get across when it is not frozen.

We returned to the car a little after 5 pm, and feeling elated in completed 3 points in one day – a new record for the group. The crossing of frozen river added a new twist to our line hunting experience. We came close to do so twice before but ran out of day light.

It was rather unexpected that we did manage to connect all the dots from 41N 112E with 41N 116E, which were 2 special points for the Yip-Bannicq Group.

Rating of this Hunt:

Degree of Challenge: 1 – 300 meters from a highway on a river bank – easy in winter when the river is frozen but could be a different story when water is running (Scale: 1= very easy - drive to the point; to 5= a death march – glad it is over)

Scenery: 3– Good view from the CP over looking a frozen river (Scale: 1= not interesting at all; 5= take your breath away)

Culture-social factors: 2– typical farming community of northern China (Scale: 1=dull; 5= most stimulating)