The five stranded hikers arrived in Yining by helicopter. The photo shows the hikers disembarking one after another.
Yining, China News Service, Oct. 10 (Zhu Jingchao & Guo Jun) — At around 17:50 on the 10th, the rescue helicopter carrying five stranded hikers landed safely at Yining Airport.
The five hikers had become lost and stranded on the mountainside near Heaven Lake while crossing the Wusun Ancient Trail on the 4th. They had intended to cross the mountain range to reach southern Xinjiang.
Zhang Xuequan, an emergency office worker from Tekes County who first learned of the stranded group, said that when the five reached the mid-mountain area, heavy snow began to fall. The mid-mountain area is at an altitude of 2,600 meters, leaving the trapped individuals unable to go up or down. On the 8th, the five sent out a distress signal, after which three rescue teams — including Tekes police officers, local herders, and the Xinjiang Hiking Rescue Team — successively arrived near Heaven Lake to assist in the rescue.
A related official from the regional emergency office stated that on the afternoon of the 8th, the emergency office reported the rescue situation to government leaders. The government then coordinated with the Xinjiang Military Region and dispatched a helicopter to the site for the rescue mission. At 12:40 on the 10th, the helicopter located the stranded individuals and air-dropped 10 bottles of water. Firefighting special operations personnel involved in the rescue also managed to meet up with the stranded group.
The five stranded hikers included two men and three women. Aside from one man who was a guide from Ili, the other four were from Nanjing, Jiangsu, and Shanghai.
Ms. Zhang Lingling, an outdoor enthusiast known online as “Lang Xiaoyaya,” told reporters that she was very scared after getting lost and never expected that a helicopter from Xinjiang would rescue them — a scene she had only seen in European and American movies. “I will remember this forever and will come back to beautiful Ili again,” she said.
The Wusun people, originally living in the Hexi Corridor, were forced to migrate westward due to the inducement and pressure of the Xiongnu. They traveled along a little-known route into the Ili River Valley in the heart of the Tianshan Mountains, driving away the Greater Yuezhi people who had also been displaced here by the Xiongnu. From then on, they thrived and multiplied on this fertile river valley grassland, enjoying prosperous livestock and population, and became the largest state among the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions at the time — the Wusun Kingdom. According to relevant historical documents, the route taken by the Wusun people during their westward migration is the Wusun Ancient Trail. This ancient trail starts from Tekes County and Zhaosu County in Ili, Xinjiang, in the north, and extends south to Baicheng County in the Aksu region of Xinjiang.