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China Impressions: Outdoor and Sports: Trekking in Xinjiang

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Xinjiang: A province with deserts and snow covered high mountains

We went trekking to the south of Xinjiang. The small town Pulu where we started our trek is roughly 60km south of Yutian. That is close to the border of Tibet just before the Tibetan Plateau.

This area is along the desert so the lower mountains are mainly sand and only green along the rivers. We went upstream one of the Keriya river arms. As the mountains get higher the sand is replaced by rocks.

The goal would have been to reach the plateau with a salt lake and some volcanoes within 3 days. But after 2 days of hiking we realized that the distances were further then we imagined. And we had to climb over mountains where it was not possible to hike in the river bed. So we stopped heading in that direction and did some side tours to the surrounding peaks which were above 4000m. Then we slowly went back to the village of Pulu and had a party with original songs and dancing.

Below are two "maps" from google earth showing what we had planned on day 1 and day 2.