Skiing China 3: Only in China…

You may have noticed, gentle reader, that I have a tendency to embark on insanely difficult projects without adequate research, and then whine about it.

Or visit out-of-the-way places, enthuse about them for a bit, then start to find them difficult and complain that they’re not, ya know, London or Bangkok.

What can I say? I’m British. I whinge.

And, furthermore, I’m doing winter in northern China.

It was always going to be difficult, particularly given whinging about the weather is actually in my DNA.

But I do think it’s illustrative of more than my own cretinosity that I managed to spend a whole two days in Yabuli without establishing that there were two substantial ski resorts in town.

For that matter, I managed to spend an entire five days in Yabuli without getting closer to the heart of the matter than that there are two large ones, and at least three smaller ones, at least one of which is reliably in operation, and possibly another mid-sized one 15-20k out of town.

What can I say? I asked a lot of people, in the hotels and in the ski resorts, but I didn’t have my own wheels, my Chinese is rubbish and, well, you try directing a Chinese driver to take you a ski resort that one of the staff at Club Med vaguely thinks might exist somewhere “that way”.

So those white patches on our map with no runs or lifts marked on them are actually an open ski resort, with working lifts? While the appealing network of polychrome ski runs and lifts on the middle of the map are actually shut?

“How many resorts are there in Yabuli?” I ask Li, who is alternating between trying to fix a time for more lessons tomorrow, ideally one each, and angling for a tip.

I have established, for at least the fourth time, that all but three lifts at Yabuli GaoShan are closed, apparently indefinitely, along with at least 70% of the appealingly brightly shaded network of runs on the ski map. “Is it just JingHao and GaoShan?”

This is what our travel agent has told us (and, no, you don’t need a travel agent to ski Yabuli, but you do need to reserve your rooms in advance). But — call me picky — I really, really would like to find something that isn’t a baby slope, a black run, a slalom or “Dangerous! Lots of rocks!”

“No,” Li says, cutting short his explanation of how the ski school takes 70 kuai of the 120 kuai per hour fee, leaving him only 50 kuai per hour, which is very probably true but frankly not my problem. “There is SanGuo.”

“THAT?” I say.

“Yes,” Li says.

So those white patches on our map with no runs or lifts marked on them are actually an open ski resort, with working lifts? While the appealing network of polychrome ski runs and lifts on the middle of the map are actually shut?

DAFUQ?

That seems to match the first two of the Chinese characters on the map, which I’m guessing mean Third Peak (三锅盛): we’re currently on 大锅盛 （Big Peak, or Main Peak, though everyone seems to call it 高山, GaoShan, or High Mountain), and the runs on 二锅盛 （Second Peak) are closed.

Our Lonely Planet does not mention any resort in Yabuli other than, well, Yabuli, which has, it says, been refurbished. The domain name yabuliski.com routes through to something called Yabuli Sun Mountain.

I have therefore assumed that Yabuli Ski Resort, Yabuli Sun Mountain and Yabuli GaoShan (High Mountain) are, well, one and the same, even though Sun Mountain apparently has something to do with Club Med, and this doesn’t have a Club Med.

Yabuli is not what you’d call a large town, and the — admittedly vintage — map on our hotel wall only includes the resort that we are currently in.

“There are ski runs there?! And it’s open?!” I say. “Is that Sun Mountain?”

“No,” Li says. “It’s SanGuo.”

That matches the first two of the Chinese characters on the map, which I’m guessing mean Third Peak (三锅盛): we’re currently on 大锅盛 （Big Peak, or Main Peak, though everyone seems to call it 高山, GaoShan, or High Mountain), and the runs on 二锅盛 （Second Peak) are closed.

“So THIS is Sun Mountain?” I say.

“This is GaoShan,” Li says irritably, before recovering and endeavouring to sell me some lessons at SanGuo.

It is perfectly possible to have one lake divided into two separate skating grounds, both government-run and administered by soldiers, with separate admission tickets and skate hire for the two, despite the fact they are actually linked by a gate, and, ya know, on the same lake, with effectively identical facilities.

Now, I learned while ice-skating in Beijing that it is perfectly possible to have one lake divided into two separate skating grounds, both government-run and administered by soldiers, with separate admission tickets and skate hire for the two, despite the fact they are actually linked by a gate, and, ya know, on the same lake, with effectively identical facilities.

That’s just China. Or, more precisely, “socialism in the Chinese manner”. You get used to it after a while.

And, of course, workers at Chinese ski resorts aren’t ski bums doing a season. They’re workers, doing their job, one of many factors which makes the rental of ski gear such a merry bagatelle.

And, of course, the Chinese names of places don’t match their English names. But still…

I wander over to a chap who looks like he’s been working here since it opened and enquire in execrable Chinese accompanied with a liberal sprinkling of pointing, “This one! SanGuo? Open not open? Chair-vehicles open not open?”

“All open!” Ooh!

We may not be spending the next three days inching painfully down icy slaloms after all!

And it’s snowing, too! Things are looking up!