Today we want to share a popular and easy hiking route with you – from Lonquanyi to Shijingsi (Shijing Temple). This hiking route is especially suitable for those who have just started hiking.
I got to know this hiking route totally by chance. I was browsing Douyin (Chinese version of Tik Tok) and saw a video of a group of people walking and running in a forest. And I thought that was nice and I want to go hiking there too. So I took a closer look at the title of the video and it said “Longquanyi to Shijingsi hiking seven lakes in a row”. Longquanyi is the terminal station of Chengdu metro line 2. If you can get somewhere by taking the metro, it means it’s not that far away so the hiking is definitely doable. I just didn’t know where Shijingsi is, so I did some research, and it is around 10-15km from Longquanyi depending on which route you take.
So on Saturday, I grabbed my backpack and took the metro to Longquanyi, after stepping out the metro station I went to a store and bought 1.5 litre bottle of water and some biscuits, then started hiking. The first few hundred metres are on the street, then you’ll walk along the 318 national highway. You’ll see a pathway, from there, the real hiking starts. There are plenty of routes, if you want to pass by all 7 of the lakes, it’ll take about 5 hours. For our journey we took the shorter route.
The starting point is actually at the Longquan Mountain Yangtianwo Mountain Bike Park. During the weekend it was packed with people – children, teenagers, adults and elders. The pathway there is paved with stone stairs for the first half of the hike, so it’s a little more comfortable than walking on mud paths. About a third of the way of the hike, you can see a great city view of Chengdu from relatively high and feel the cool wind brush against your face during the hot summers. There is a road sign with the words ‘我在成都等风来’ which means ‘I’m in Chengdu waiting for the wind’. I’d say that I’m in Chengdu waiting for you. Come and join our program – Teach English in China and experience the amazing culture and sites.
On the second half of the hike, the journey features mud trails, grass lands, bushes, trees and mountains. You can definitely get closer to mother nature and forget about the hustle and bustle of the city. It’s very peaceful and relaxing, and great to get some exercise too. We completed our hike under 3 hours and 30 minutes, and hiked about 14.41km, the highest peak we walked up to was about 930 metres. The finishing point is Shijingsi, one of the most famous temples in Chengdu and a place where worshippers go to pray for love. It turns out that you don’t need to buy a ticket to gain entrance, so we had a quick tour.
Overall it was a pretty satisfying hike.
