Steep Steps, Soft Feet: Climbing a 3,000-Step Ladder to a Cliffside Village

By: Xiao Lü Hai (Little Travel Kid)

I believe many people knowChinahas quite a few impoverished mountainous areas, where residents often have to trek through mountains and rivers, spending a long time just to come and go. Usually, we learn about these situations through charitable organizations, but in reality, there are environments even more terrifying than what we see on TV. It’s hard to imagine that there is a village located right on the edge of a cliff, where residents have to climb nearly 3,000 steps every time they go up or down.

Locatedin SichuanProvince’s Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Zhaojue County, Zhiermo Township, is the village of Atule’er, also known as the Cliff Village. Situated at an altitude of 1,600 meters, aerial photos show it surrounded by mountains like a hidden paradise. But in reality, traveling up and down the mountain is an arduous task. The 3,000-step ladder that villagers now use is already the latest infrastructure, built with 120 tons of steel, consisting of a total of 6,000 steel pipes.

There used to be a cableway connecting the village to the valley below, but operating it required hundreds of kilowatts of electricity. Given the village’s self-sufficient capabilities, it simply couldn’t afford the cost, so the cableway was eventually removed.

After that, villagers continued using a vine ladder to get around. The old ladder was almost vertical against the cliff face, and it took the children and villagers about 2–4 hours to climb up and down each time. Along the way, they had to scale 17 consecutive vine ladders along the cliff edge—it’s hard to imagine how terrifying it must have been, knowing that a sheer drop lay just behind you.

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