Word: qutang
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...spent most of his years in the westernmost of the Three Gorges in central China, straining against ships' ropes of braided bamboo, this looming disaster is relative. "I used to pull boats through there 25 times a month," says the 73-year-old, pointing from his doorway to Qutang Gorge, where the Yangtze rushes between towering limestone cliffs...
...more than a decade, they are immortalized in legend and song, and by authors in the West such as John Hersey and Paul Theroux. We have come to Chen's home in Daxi in part because of Hersey's 1956 novel, A Single Pebble, which vividly describes the Qutang trackers' path, a narrow walkway carved into the cliff wall. Hersey calls it "the most terrible place on the whole river," a tempting endorsement for any adventurer. The soaring Gorges cliffs draw thousands of visitors a year to cruise the Yangtze. But many are underwhelmed by the sterile tourist-boat experience...
Without a boat to drag, the walk along the Qutang towpath only takes four hours. A sampan carries us to the north side of the Yangtze, where the path runs some 50 m above the late-summer waterline. About 1.5 m wide, it's paved with well fitting flagstones running westward through light brush. Only a few sections have crumbled since its completion in 1900, a sharp contrast to most roads in the area. Below us are traces of lower trails, narrow and treacherous paths used by workmen who needed to be closer to the river. Short, granite pillars line...
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