The hengduan mountain range is one of the most unfamiliar and daunting places because it has it vast, uninhabited mountains with crevasses that could consume you without a trace. The path we were about to travel upon was full of switchbacks and steep mountainous trails the stretch as far as 2,250 kilometers making it one of the most difficult places to travel.

There was about 500 travelers who are walking with me, Every traveler wore a pack that carried almost twice their body weight in tea bricks on their back. There we were , hundreds of us,  walking on a path about three feet wide One head behind another lined up single file we walked, treading carefully struggling under the weight of the packs.

To our right stood a towering wall of stone and to our left there was steep drop off into a deep crevasse in between the two mountains. Each traveler laid a guiding hand on the wall in fear of falling. Every once and awhile we would find a dip in the path that brought us down toward pools of brown water where we would rest and let the horses drink.

-Mikayla Collingbourne