#4: [12-Jun-14]

#2: [25-Jul-10]

#3: [19-Apr-09] (incomplete)

#1: [29-Jul-04] (incomplete)

27N100E: A Submerged Sense of Reality

10-July-2026

The car crossed the mountain pass near Xiongu （雄古） and began to descend along the winding mountain road, while the Jinsha River flashed through the gaps in the shrubs, slowly unfolding beneath our feet. Here, the Jinsha River, rushing southward all the way, is blocked by the Yulong Snow Mountain, turning northward at an angle of nearly 180 degrees to pass through the deep gorge between the Yulong Snow Mountain and the Haba Snow Mountain. This great turn originated from a geological upheaval contemporary with the Himalayan orogeny: due to the elevation of the terrain, the river's downcutting speed increased, and a certain branch of the Yangtze River system captured the upper reaches of the ancient Red River system near Shigu （石鼓镇）in this way, forming the basic course of the Yangtze River today. This hairpin bend, along with the deeply incised Tiger Leaping Gorge with a height difference of over 3,000 meters, stands as witness to the violent geological activities of that time.

And a new—equally violent—geological change might be unfolding in our present moment. Along the way, my companion He Wenchao measured the altitude with a mobile application and stopped the car when the altitude dropped to 2,010 meters. It is said that this is the planned high-water storage level of the Longpan Hydropower Station. This means that once this huge dam, with a reservoir capacity comparable to that of the Three Gorges Dam, is completed, the 300 meters from here down to the river surface will be submerged. Near the epicenter of the former great Lijiang earthquake, a veritable "high gorge and smooth lake" will emerge. After taking some simple photos, we continued to drive downward, imagining ourselves in the near future, with the things around us sinking to the bottom of the water along with us. We successively passed some massive infrastructure projects that had just been completed not long ago, including the channels and dams of the Central Yunnan Water Diversion Project, as well as the bridge spanning the Jinsha River. A sense of absurdity spontaneously arose: the speed of reality's iteration is so fast that planning has to remain in a state of continuous temporariness. These projects, built at enormous expense, will soon become ruins due to the arrival of new plans, becoming things that must make way.

Crossing the bridge to the north of the river, we traveled upstream parallel to the river bank. This section of the road had only just had its foundation laid, and construction was suspended before the road surface could be paved. Indeed, why does something destined to disappear need to be completed? When the end is determined, daily life loses its original meaning. Everything is destined to disappear, so why bother building? Perhaps, before that point in time arrives, converting and squandering all the resources that can be grabbed here is what is real. In the fields destined to be flooded, to see how many more seasons of harvest can be snatched.

Arriving at Lidu Village (礼都村）, we turned onto the mountain path leading east along the valley fork. As the highway spiraled, the altitude gradually rose, and soon, we returned to the reality above the water level. Looking back and imagining the vast water surface that will appear, I secretly felt fortunate that now might be the last chance to reach the coordinate point of 27N100E. Like most of the previous Yunnan coordinate points, the terrain's resistance rose sharply as we approached the confluence point. The concrete road ended; we stopped the car and began to walk. The GPS showed that there was still a distance of 800 meters left to the confluence point. I conservatively estimated that this might mean more than an hour of trekking.

Sure enough, after the concrete road disappeared, the path narrowed quickly, and the slope rose rapidly. Soon, the two friends traveling with us gave up proceeding, while I and another Naxi artist continued to climb along the path toward the ridge to the northeast. In this rugged terrain, both the GPS signal and satellite map navigation appeared suspicious, with our location point and heading direction constantly jumping. And this time, I had very unwisely forgotten to bring a compass, so I could only make judgments based on the initially calibrated coordinate point and the surrounding terrain, maneuvering between ridges and ravines, and moving forward along the winding road. Suddenly, I found that the GPS reading was increasing instead of decreasing. It was time to leave the road. I changed to several different positions, comparing directions, and finally, I determined that the confluence point was on the south side of the road, and I needed to cross a mountain stream and climb up a cliff face. Fortunately, the horizontal distance to the destination was less than 50 meters.

The Naxi artist sat down to rest by the roadside, so the final 50 meters became my solo climb. Leaping over wobbly stones and dodging the stinging nettles, I maneuvered upward on a loose slope of nearly 70 degrees, finally to be blocked beneath a vertical stone wall. Studying the GPS carefully, I found that the confluence point was actually just a few meters to the east, parallel to the cliff face. Placing my feet with utmost care, and vigilantly looking up to observe falling rocks in the rainy season, the digits after the decimal point of the latitude and longitude gradually disappeared. Finally, I held up the GPS toward the cliff face, and the digits after the decimal point cleared to zero. Looking north, there was the dense grove on the steep slope we had come from; looking south was the high cliff that blocked the view, extending further in both east and west directions. After taking photos in the four cardinal directions, I found a slightly flatter spot to sit down, turned on my voice recorder, and recorded ten minutes of mountain wind and birdsong.

The return journey was much faster. After carefully walking through the most rugged section, we walked quickly and jogged, soon reuniting with our companions waiting at the vehicle, and continued the itinerary for the next two days. Actually, apart from my checking in at the geographical confluence point, our trip was mainly to inspect the Jinsha River rock paintings from 13,000 years ago. The car carried us through the magnificent Tiger Leaping Gorge, arriving before sunset at Daju Township （大具乡）, which is situated on a river terrace. The next day, we turned toward the river bank, and after hiking for an hour, we finally found a huge cave formed jointly by collapse, glacial erosion, and karst processes; on the cliff face at the cave entrance, the lines painted by ancient people using ochre mixed with ox blood had already become mottled along with the cliff surface. We sat down, listening to the deep roaring of the Jinsha River hundreds of meters beneath our feet. The past is still echoing, while the future will arrive with a roar. We sat quietly just like this, in the layers of different times.