Buzz
Instead of trekking for days to the nearest village, residents of Yushan, Hubei Province, brave a daring journey on an old cableway clinging to the mountainside.
Yushan, nestled in Hubei Province, China, sits 150 km from the nearest administrative city, enveloped by cliffs and valleys, rendering it virtually isolated from the outside world.
The sole connection to the outside world is a 1 km cableway suspended 480 m above the deep mountain ravine. This rudimentary cable system consists of a steel cage and a diesel engine, constructed in 1997 to facilitate local transportation and supply delivery.
Zhang Xinjian, a villager, has operated the cableway for the past 15 years, stating: “I started working here when the cable system was established. No one wanted this job. My father was the village head and had to assign me this duty. It's been 15 years since then.”
The most perilous task for the cableway operator is lubricating the cables weekly. Zhang manually runs the cables and applies oil along the cable route.
At first, both my father and younger brother were involved in maintaining the cable line, but later my brother quit, and my father's health declined. Therefore, I'm the only one capable of handling it,' Xinjian said.
The local authorities are constructing a road for the village and plan to cease the cable operation once completed.
A series of images depicting the cable line in Yushan village:
Source: VnExpress.net
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Reference: Mytour Travel Handbook
TravelWorld.comJune 18, 2014
