Luoyang Departure Red Flag Canal and Taihang Cliffs 5 Days

Leave Luoyang at seven and reach Linzhou in three and a half hours. Start at the Red Flag Canal memorial, where the hammers, the drills and the carrying baskets of the works are laid out and the walls carry rows of black and white photographs; then walk up to the diversion garden where the three main channels split and the water pushes out of the gates with real weight behind it. Lunch in town is a single pot of braised pork, tofu and glass noodles. The afternoon carries nothing heavy: drive into Shibanyan and settle in, following the Lushui river between vertical walls, the town squeezed into the gorge with one street and a few guesthouses that go quiet except for the water.

Attraction introduction: The Red Flag Canal broke ground in 1960 with close to a hundred thousand people from Linzhou taking part, cutting some fifteen hundred kilometres of channel along the cliffs of the eastern Taihang to bring water from the Zhuozhang river. It was largely complete by 1969 and is known as the canal in the sky. The diversion garden is the point where the three main channels divide; the memorial and the Youth Tunnel lie about twenty five kilometres apart, linked by a free park shuttle for ticket holders.

Tips: The memorial sits on flat ground and costs little effort, while the Youth Tunnel involves climbing, so the two should not share a day. Guests generally find the old photographs land harder than any panel of text and deserve an extra half hour. In practice the first day takes only the memorial and saves the legs for the tunnel next morning.

The second morning goes to the Youth Tunnel. The shuttle drops you at the canal bank and the walk follows the main channel, water running at your feet and a vertical cliff on the other side with no visible top. The tunnel itself is the six hundred metre bore that three hundred young workers cut through the precipice in a little over a year; a boat runs inside, cool and loud with water echoing between the walls. Outside again, a narrow cleft called the First Line of Sky leads up a steep set of steps where hands do some of the work. In the afternoon drive west into the Taihang Grand Canyon and walk Taohua valley, a flat floor of pools and cascades ending at the Nine Falls. Back in Shibanyan by dusk.

Attraction introduction: The Youth Tunnel was the choke point of the main canal, begun in February 1960 and driven through by a youth brigade of more than three hundred in one year and five months; it runs 616 metres. The Taihang Grand Canyon around Shibanyan holds Taohua valley, about four kilometres long, cut into Proterozoic quartz sandstone into a chain of falls and pools, with the Nine Falls the most concentrated drop.

Tips: The tunnel shuttle is twenty yuan return and the boat thirty, both optional, and the walk works without either. Guests generally find the canal bank path has no railing on the outer side, so children need a hand held the whole way. In practice the shuttle is included in the price and the three kilometres saved go into the steps at the cleft.

The third day runs the Taihang ridge road, thirty kilometres laid along the crest, with viewpoints every few minutes: the car moves, stops, moves again, and below are the roofs of Shibanyan and the switchbacks that got you up here. When mist lies in the valley the peaks float one by one. Lunch back in town, then Wangxiangyan in the afternoon, which is a climb of more than a thousand steps from the gate to the summit, including a steel spiral stair pinned to the cliff known as the sky ladder. It shakes the legs, and the top gives the best view of the whole gorge. Back down for an early night.

Attraction introduction: The ridge road follows the crest of the southern Taihang and links more than ten viewing platforms across a large elevation range, the most direct way to read the block fault landscape. Wangxiangyan is traditionally where Fu Yue of the Shang dynasty withdrew; the summit stands about eight hundred metres above the valley floor, the path is built against the cliff, and the spiral stair rises nearly a hundred metres inside a steel cage.

Tips: The ridge road turns constantly and motion sickness is common, so keep breakfast light. Guests generally find the spiral stair looks worse than it is, since the cage is continuous and a slow pace is fine. In practice the road is driven in the morning when the mist has lifted by ten, and the climb waits for the afternoon shade.

Fourth day toward Huixian county, an hour and a half. Guoliang village comes first, hung on the cliff with walls of red stone and roofs of slate. The tunnel road starts behind the village: 1,250 metres long, thirty five windows cut through the outer wall, and as the car moves the light sweeps in section by section. Work began in 1972, thirteen villagers with hammers and drills took five years, and traffic passed in 1977. The afternoon goes to Nanping, where the stream and the boulders at the valley floor are the attraction, walking as far as Black Dragon pool. Sleep in Guoliang or Nanping, where the quilts are thick because the nights are cold.

Attraction introduction: Guoliang sits in Shayao township of Huixian at about a thousand metres, on a shelf above a Taihang precipice. The tunnel road was cut by the villagers themselves through the cliff face, 1,250 metres with thirty five windows for light and air, begun in 1972 and opened in 1977. Wanshan Mountain takes in Guoliang, Nanping and Luojiazhai, known for red rock walls and stone villages.

Tips: The tunnel is a road, not a footpath, so photographs are taken from the recesses beside the windows and never from the carriageway. Guests generally find the light range inside defeats phone metering and the windows blow out to white. In practice the car stops at the portal and the driver takes it through in stages, with everyone out at the windows, which is safer and photographs better.

No rush on the last morning. Walk the village at first light: stone houses, stone mills, corn drying under the eaves, the sun coming through the eastern gap. Before noon there is time for a stretch of the Danfen valley in Nanping, narrow and almost empty. Lunch in the village, then the road at one, joining the expressway at Huixian and back in Luoyang around four. Bags are packed the night before, because a wheeled case is a nuisance on mountain paths and a pack is easier.

Attraction introduction: The villages around Wanshan Mountain build walls of red sandstone and cover roofs with slate, the classic stone house form of the Taihang. Danfen is a side valley of the Nanping section, some three kilometres deep, its rock layers close to vertical and water in the floor most of the year, with far fewer visitors than Guoliang.

Tips: Mountain nights and days can differ by more than ten degrees, so a warm layer belongs in the bag in May and October alike. Guests generally find Guoliang at dawn better than at midday, empty and still hazy. In practice departure is set for one in the afternoon, clear of the school and commuter traffic around Huixian.