Aden Scenic Area

Stunning and spectacular scenic areas. Three holy snow mountains, glacial lakes, rivers and virgin forests. Wild animals I saw blue sheep, monkeys and squirrels freely had fun.

Well worth the effort to reach here as it is a long way walking trek to the top and quite high at about 4600 meters. Stunning views on the way but a little bit steeper and adventurous trekking on foot.

I will recommend you bring a stick and an oxygen canister but we did not need it ...just an emergency.

I was here in Oct 2018(review a little bit late) it was incredible amazing and fantastic. Very greatly recommend.

The scenic views of this highland are absolutely worth your efforts to visit. The mountain scene is so picturesque that is excellent for photography. The journey is accessible through an hour bus ride on a winding mountainous narrow road, followed by half an hour electric buggy car ride. All effort to reach there is worth it.

The Yading Nature Reserve located at southern Daocheng county. Its area cover 1344km2 with famous 3 holy mountains with Mt. Xiannairi rising to 6,032m, Mt.Xianuoduoji at 6,000m and Mt.Yangmaiyong at 5,958m. These 3 snow-capped peaks sit in a triangle formation with valleys, crystal clear rivers, glacier-fed lakes and abundant wildlife between them. The famous 3 lakes, Pearl Lake at 3800m, Milky Lake at 4500m and 5 Colors Lake with 4700m are commonly hike by tourists,

I travelled here in May 2019. The ticket office is located in Shangrila town. 150 RMB entrance fee valid for 2 visits within a 3 day period, If you go there on Monday, the ticket is valid to Wednesday but your second visit must be on Tuesday or Wednesday. The sightseeing bus ticket is 120 RMB and if you go there a second time, you must show your original entrance fee ticket and a selfie of you inside the scenic area to qualify for a 50% discount (60 RMB) for the bus. The bus will bring you to Chonggu monastery. There will be many locals offering to guide you; choose one that has an official permit. Most of the official guides start work from 9 am and some before 9 am. However, they only speak Mandarin. The guides charge 400 RMB for the long route; 300 RMB for the short route. We chose to go with a guide because if there is an emergency due to altitude sickness, they will know what to do. The short route brings you to Pearl lake where you can see Xiannairi mountain very prominently. It is an uphill climb and does take effort contrary to what I have read. At 4100 m altitude, this can be problematic for some. To do the long route, pay 80 RMB return mini-car transport to Luorong pasture. It is 5 km trekking from 4100 m to 4600 m to reach Milk lake. The horse will take you 2/3 of the way and the remaining 1/3 is a 45 degree uphill climb. If you weigh more than 170 lbs, the horse will not take you. It costs 300 RMB one way on horse. If you need a horse on the way back, you will find owners leading their horses back to Luorong and they can conveniently accommodate you but negotiate the price down because he has to return to Luorong any way. At Luorong, you can see Xianaduoji mountain and if you trek up to Milk lake, the peak of Yangmaiyong will become more apparent. It took me 90 mins to trek on foot from Luorong to Milk Lake. From Milk Lake, I took another 25 mins to trek to Five colour Lake. I don’t think 5 colour lake is as pretty as Milk Lake because it is surrounded by the 3 mountains and sunlight only hits the lake early morning. You will be offered 2 options on the track, either hike up to Milk Lake first or hike to 5 colour lake first. The latter option is a steeper climb and I would not recommend this. At the lakes, the locals sell food and drinks such as mineral water and instant noodles. Don’t panic if you run out of water. Although some reviewers commented that the entrance and bus tickets are expensive, I do not agree. I found that the paths were very well maintained and did not mind spending extra to fund the maintenance. The flowers were blooming in May but the pasture still looks dry. It rains in Jun-Aug and the paths might be muddy. Avoid first 2 weeks of October as it is peak travel season for Chinese tourists. Note: don’t feed the monkeys; they can be aggressive if you give food to 1 or 2 monkeys and not the rest of the troop.

Daocheng Yading is a national park that one must visit if on the western side. Its technically in Sichual... but very close to Yunnan border. You can reach it from both sides... we went from Shangri La. Two full days is least you should spend here just for the park.... and to take it slow and easy and enjoying the views. Depending on where u r coming from, you might feel the altitude hit you hard. We went Dali- Shangri La and then Yading (which had us fairly acclimatized) but we still felt some altitude impact. Strongly advise not to fly in but come by road and fly out (if at all). Dont expect to avoid the local touristy crowd though in early May... it was not much.

Well worth the effort to get here as it is a long way from civilisation and very high at over 4,000 metres.

Some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen. Very crowded as usual in China but not as bad as most places, once you are off the buses it’s not too bad at all.

Two valleys to explore and is well worth a full day if you can stay in Shangri La town.

Fairly expensive but definitely worth it. Catch the upper electric bus to the end and then walk the five kilometres back through the meadows to the main bus station terminus.

The natural beauty of the area is magnificent. However, your visit might be ruined by the absurdly expensive entrance free (290 Yuan, for maximun three days!), the littering and spiting of many locals; plus the greedy and rude people who run businesses in Aden (Yading village).

YADING VILLAGE
An artificial town with no charm, just a tourist trap. With a couple of exceptions, hotels, shops and restaurants don’t care about customer service at all, they’ll just try to rip you off as much as possible during your stay. Try to bring your own food and everything you may need, don’t spend a dollar here. Everything in Yading is a rip-off.

YADING PARK
As expected, there’s no information from the park management except in Chinese. Prices are in English though, of course they did translate that. They built horrendous platforms everywhere in order to offer tourists an easy access to every lake and waterfall, destroying every view that one day used to be beautiful. A real shame.
You can still scape all this nonesense by hiking the kora, which takes aboit 11 hours but takes you far from the crowds.
The scenery is beautiful, but so it is in other cheaper and more deserving places of the world.