Minya Konka South Where the Main Peak Mt. Gongga(7556-m) Is Located

Minya Konka refers to the big mountain massif located south to Kangding in Garze Prefecture in Western Sichuan. It is the most prominent mountain massif in this region.

South of Minya Konka is where the highest peak Mt. Gongga(7556-m) is located and has a very big difference of altitude rise from below 1500m to above 7500m in a short distance. It is also home to the traditional Base Camp of climbers to Minya Konka and the famous Gonga Gompa, an old monastery that is located in the deep mountains by the southwest of the main peaks

Gongga Travel Mt. Nama High Camp View

Trips to south of Minya Konka require around 5 to 7 days from Chengdu and involves walking for long hours. This part of Minya Konka is less developed due to its mountainous terrain and hard access by road.

The Tianwan River runs from the melting glacier by the foot of the big mountains and runs down to Dadu River. Caoke is the last village by the road that goes to the south of Minya Konka. From Caoke it is around 25km drive to end of the road where there is a car park. This car park is usually refered as Bawang Lake Car Park. Bawang id from the name of the marshy/lake named Bawang by 5km west from the car park that sometimes you see day hikers come to visit. Beyond the car park it is the bordering area of Yaan Precinct and Garze Precinct. Usually by the bordering places infrastructure is falling behind. There is no road connects from the car park to Zimei Village, the first village you see when walking from the car park for around 15km. This makes this beautiful place relatively difficult to access. There is no actual border but on east by the foot of the mountains live Hang Chinese people and by the west on higher mountains live the Tibetan people.

Caoke(Shimian)

Caoke is a the small village by Tianwan River Gorge in Shimian County. It is usually the stopover place for trips to south of Minya Konka. It takes around 7 hours drive from the city of Chengdu to get to Caoke. From Caoke the road goes on for another 25km to the Bawang Lake Car park at 3000m. Note elevation by Caoke is at 1400m and you won't feel any altitude by sleeping there. Caoke is often a misty place and gets a lot of rain in summer.

In Caoke there is decent hotels available and even hot springs available. There are not much to do in Caoke except the hot spring. It has some small shops that you can buy some snacks and other food. Try the barbecue for dinner.

Bawang Lake

Bawang Lake is actually not a lake but rather a wider and marshy part of the upper Tianwan River. The river spreads out at this wide and flat part of valley. In wet season the water is high and it looks like a lake. This lake is located by the south of Mt. Nyambo Konka (6114-m). Bawang lake is also the entrance to the south face of Mt. Sanlian and Mt. Dai by the south of the Minya Konka Massif.

When walking into the valley you'll normally see other visitors. The visitors will either be day hikers that go to see the Bawang Lake or climbers to Mt. Nama. The trail in the valley is a decent mountain trail that is good enough for a motorbike to ride. Before motorbike was available local people use mules and horses to provide Porter service for hikers and climbers. Now the horses are only used in snowing and flooding seasons. For most of the time local people provide motorbike for luggage carrying.

Gongga Travel Bawang Lake

Gongga Travel Mt. Dai and Mt. Sanlian Southface

Gongga Travel Nyambo Konka South

Zimei Village

Zimei Village is sometimes written as Tsemed Village. It is located in Kangding of Garze Prefecture by the south of Minya Konka. It can be accessed from east and from west via Shangmuju. From east is usually how people travel to Zimei and then further to Gongga Gompa and Mt. Nama. From the Bawang Lake car park to Zimei Village is total around 15km that is only accessible by foot or motorbike. Car park is at 3000m and Zimei Village is at 3400m. From Zimei Village one can travel further to Shangmuju and the lakes by the west of Minya Konka including Langgatso, Quanhuatan etc. There is a basic road that connects Zimei and Shangmuju with the road pass named Zimei Pass. Note the road is around 16km normally by driving will take around 1h between Shangnuju and Zimei Village due to its poor condition. During snowy/icy days it is not safe to drive on this road. For any trip that will extend to either side of the pass will need to use local cars for this drive over Zimei Pass.

The village of Zimei is small and is consisted of three clusters of houses: Lower Zimei, Middle Zimei and Upper. Zimei. Each cluster has around 3-4 families and they are around 1km away from one another. Almost every family offers guestrooms for travelers. These rooms are very basic usually with shared toilet and no hot water for shower. There is electricity but internet is not reliable. Food will be provided by the guesthouses with quite limited options. Please note the guesthouses are very basic. The rooms only have small bed with quilts and normally not very clean quilts. We think it might be a better idea to camp near the house and use their water to cook and toilet to use at night. If using the lodges then we recommend you at least bring your sleeping bag just for hygiene reasons.

Gongga Travel Zimei Village

Gongga Gompa

Gongga Gompa indicates the Gongga Monastery, a small monastery by the foot of Mt. Gongga at the elevation of 3700m. In Tibetan Gompa means Monastery. It is an old monastery that was built over 300 years ago. There is 1-2 monks whole live in the monastery and two more workers taking care of the monastery guestrooms. There is a small shrine by the temple but for most of the time it is shut off. From the monastery one can see the SW face of Mt. Gongga in a close range. During festival seasons (usually lunar New Year and summer depending on the season) there are a lot of local Buddhist pilgrims walking to the monastery and some even walking to the small shrines to the base camp of the mountains.

From Zimei Village it is around 7km to Gongga Gompa. One can walk there or use motorbike. But normally we recommend you to walk and use motorbike for your luggage.

Behind the Gompa there is a trail that goes above the tree line where one can see a panoramic view of the big mountains including Mt. Gongga(7556-m) and the high mountains around it. For hikers who are with limited time can consider to go higher to the ridge behind the Gompa instead of going to the base camp when it's not available.

Gongga Travel Gongga Gompa

Gongga Travel Looking back Gongga Gompa

Gongga Travel Inside Gongga Gompa

Gongga Travel Mountain View from the Monastery

Base Camp

Base Camp now usually refers to the Mt. Nama base camp at 4200m around 7km from Gongga Gompa. It was also used for Mt. Gongga itself. From the monastery walk to the base camp and come back takes a full day. Elevation is between 3600m and 4200m. From the monastery first one needs to drop down to the bottom of the valley at around 3600m before walking up on the sliding part. From around 4000m you should get to relatively flat part where climbers use as base camps. There are a couple of another flat places good for camping. The final flat part is a big one at around 4200m. This I'd also where normally the furthest the horses can get to. To climb Mt. Nama one has to go from here to its advanced base camp to 4700m before reaching the summit at 5588m.

Gongga Travel Trek to BC

Gongga Travel Above Nama BC

Gongga Travel Exploring aroun BC

Gongga Travel Walk to BC

Mt. Nama Climb

Mt. Nama is also called Mt. Nochma Konka including that is 5588-m above sea level. It is one of the mostly-climbed 5000er in China. It requires only basic roping and not a technical climb. It is a good mountain to climb for people who wish to train go higher to over 6000m or 7000m. It is relatively an easy mountain to climb once you are acclimated to the altitude.

The climbing season usually starts from June and last til as late to November. But spring time in April and May it may still be doable but have higher chance of heavy snow that may make the approach from ABC to summit too risky.

Gongga Travel Mt. Nama High Camp in Summer