Photos from our ride to Drak Yerpa!

We started the climb proper and we stopped to have a look back at Lhasa before we turned the corner...


Over the edge at this point we could see lots of farming....


...and the road to the top of the pass.


Woohoo! The top of the pass - the sign said 3980 meters - it is as high as either of us have ever been on a bicycle (until later in the afternoon, of course :).



And then the road down....


and the flat hairpins that descend off the backside of the pass...where we bombed down in payment for our effort on the climb :)


We stopped for lunch...here is A (looking very rested :) and the lovely view up the canyon.


These are the fort ruins across from our lunch stop...


...and this is a view down the valley - which we had just climbed up.


We hopped back on the bikes and continued up, passing some villages...


Then we spotted this old dam and we just *had* to go offroading...there was a trail on the left, begging to be ridden :)


While A was raging on the rock....


...I spotted this lovely flower growing next to the trail :)


...then A caught me traversing the riverbed.



The yaks were plentiful in the valley :)




You can just see this fellow's horns poking up - special Chinese spy yak, I think :)


Not that we are Hobbits or anything....but we stopped for a second lunch after another hour of riding :) This is the view down the valley....


The view across the road - there was a spring coming down off the mountain making everything green.


...and looking up at what we still had to ride....


...and then getting on with it :)...


...and then stopping for more air (there is not a lot of it at 4000 meters!)...or was this one of the times we laughed so hard we had to stop for air??? :)


At this point we need to stop and show you this absolutely STUNNING skyscape. Wow, or what, eh? :) Photo courtesy of A's magic camera!


Just past the 2nd lunch spot we reached Lo village and looking up we could see the retreat caves (those black holes in the middle). The road we were riding used to be dirt and Lo village is where the pilgrims left the dirt road and got onto singletrack to climb up to the monastery and caves. Now the road goes all the way up to the top - paved up to the last village and then 2 kms of dirt switchbacks to get to the monastery.


This is the monastery from Lo Village....



This is the last village at the end of the pavement...


...and check out the view through the village up a side canyon!!!! I know it's hard to see, but there is a hole in the rock at the top of that valley...no idea how it got there, it seems a bit high for water to have done it.


This is taken from the dirt hairpins - it's the last paved hairpin before the village...and a nice view of someone's ploughed field :)


Then it was up the dirt hairpins....


...resting occasionally :)


You can see the hairpins and look down on the last village here...that is another side valley that has a very interesting dirt road going up it...hmmmm :)


Then we were at the top!!!!! This is the view down the valley.


We arrived at the stupas that we had been shooting for! On one side there were many small rock chortens



...and then left them behind as we climbed even farther up!


Then we reached the top of the top (finally!!!!)


Drak Yerpa had been heavily damaged during the Cultural Revolution (according to the book) and we saw a lot of ruins up there, but whether they are from that time or they are older ruins...we don't know.




The prayer flags on the mountain make it look like the monastery keeps a very large spider as a pet....


We were in desperate need of water and all the sudden we were surrounded by people that wanted to help us....maybe sell us a ticket...or just be friendly :)




And then it was time to head down down down...past the stupa, the dirt hairpins and the paved road!


Needless to say, we had been climbing for most of the day and it was time to bomb down :) - we didn't stop much for photos. This is our little offroad foray across a demolished bridge - it was at our second lunch stop and we made a note of it for the descent. You can just barely see the broken bridge (just below the top of the pole) and the trail down the right hand side. Then you can see us crossing over said bridge :) Sorry, I would have got A riding the rocks again, but she was gone before I could get my camera out :)




We bombed the valley back down to Yerpa village and hung a right to climb the flat hairpins. I tried to sprint to the top to get a pic of A as she was climbing up and I nearly died - there was not enough oxygen!!!! So much for attacking the climbs. I did get far enough ahead to get the photo, though :)




Here is another picture of A gritting her way up the final climb when there is not enough oxygen to even sing as she rides :)


And the bikes did a wonderful job carrying us up and down the hills and through the dirt and along the rocky paths - they rock, too....just like we do :)