↑ The monument to "Environmental Defender" Jessan Sonandaj was inaugurated in September 2013 at the Kunlun Pass at an altitude of 4,767 meters
Red Star News Reporter 丨Cai Xiaoyi Wang Zhenhua Photojournalist 丨Wang Hongqiang Tao Ke Sent from Golmud, Qinghai
Responsible editor 丨 Ren Zhijiang Editor 丨 Peng Jiang
"Don't let everything become a memory." Driving on the Coco Siri National Highway 109, a UNESCO ecological protection sign flashes by.
Entering July, the Red Star News reporter and his party have passed the halfway point of their interview trip in Sanjiangyuan National Park. At night, we prepared to leave Guoluozhou, the source of the Yellow River, and head northwest to the source of the Yangtze River. Along the way, it is expected to pass through Golmud, Kunlun Mountain Pass, Sonandaj Monument, Frozen Spring, Wudaoliang, along the Tuotuo River... The average altitude is more than 4300 meters. Navigation shows that the straight-line distance is more than 400 kilometers, and it takes nearly a whole day to run.
Unlike the continuous alpine meadows at the source of the Yellow River, the further west you go, the mountains gradually become coarse, and the texture of the wind is clearly displayed in the Gobi wasteland. Only the folds that extend from the top of the mountain to the foot of the mountain have rubble, snow and greenery in between.
↑ Yangtze River source mountains under the sun
Before leaving, the managers of Sanjiangyuan National Park introduced us, "Here, you can experience the four seasons in one day." Sure enough, when the car drove to the Kunlun Mountain Station, it suddenly fell hail and crackled on the window. The higher up, the higher the altitude, the Baishan Terrace at the foot of Kunlun Mountain has begun to accumulate snow. Along the way, you can see Tibetan antelope, wild yak, Tibetan wild donkey and other wild animals from time to time.
↑ The snow-capped mountain at the source of the Three Rivers is covered with snow at the top
Since ancient times, Kunlun Mountain has been revered as the Sect of Ten Thousand Mountains and the Source of Hundred Rivers. Where there are mountains, there must be glaciers, and where there are glaciers, there must be rivers, which have bred countless lives. At the mouth of Kunlun Mountain, the Sonam Daje Monument stands here, and tourists continue to brave the cold wind and lack of oxygen to visit here. Some stopped for a long time, hung up hada and left.
The staff of the Coco Siri Management Committee told us that one day 28 years ago, ecological conservation worker Jason Sonandaj and his teammates captured 20 poachers here, captured 7 cars and more than 1,800 Tibetan antelope skins. On the way back to escort the gangsters, Sonandaj was attacked by the gangsters and died heroically. In Coco Cili, at minus 40 degrees Celsius, he clutched his shotgun and froze into an ice sculpture. In 2004, Sonandaj's story was made into the film Coco Ciri. Along the way, we learned that many of the people who are now dedicated to environmental causes in Coco Ciri have been more or less influenced by Sonandaj.
Crossing the Kunlun Mountain Pass, it is the Sonandaj Conservation Station and the Wudaoliang Conservation Station, which are stationed here every year to protect the migration of Tibetan antelope. Long Zhoucaijia, 33, is the deputy station manager of the suo station, and when we arrived, he was taking advantage of the clear weather and squatting outdoors with the rangers to wash dishes. After graduating from junior high school at the age of 16, Long Zhoucaijia went to Coco Xili as a steward, "I want to see for myself what the place that Secretary Suo protected with his life is like." ”
As soon as he got out of the car, the Red Star News reporter happily told Long Zhoucaijia that he had just seen two Tibetan antelopes on the way here, eating grass with their heads bowed. Long Zhou Caijia was a little proud, "There are only two, and there are herds of Tibetan antelopes that you didn't see." "In the past few years, several conservation stations have rescued more than 600 wild animals of various types, and more than 300 Tibetan antelopes have been released.
↑ Tibetan antelope near the so station
There are not many people in each protection station, less than 10, and most of them are young people. Shifts are changed every six months, and the stationing is taking turns on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of 4600 meters. In the lonely cocoa cili, the animals became their companions. Long Zhou Caijia also brought his puppy Tu Tu in his hometown of Yushu to the rope station, because he was injured as a child, Tu Tu turned a leg, but still ran up and down after Long Zhou Cai Jia every day.
Long Zhou Caijia recalled that in Zhuo Nai Lake, he met the first Tibetan antelope he rescued, "At night I slept with it in the grass shed." When it got up the next day, it stared at me with two big eyes and followed me, licking my pants as if it thought I was its father. "This lamb, like the countless Tibetan antelopes he later rescued, was released into nature when it grew up in the grassland of the rope station to have a certain ability to survive.
↑Long Zhou Cai jia grabbed a piece of grass, attracting a small Tibetan antelope to come forward
Before leaving, Long Zhou Caijia also shared with us a story of the rangers: "Once when our team members were patrolling the mountains, they saw a Tibetan antelope in the distance, and they kept looking at him with their big round eyes. He told me that for a moment it was as if he had recognized him by the Tibetan antelope he had released before. As he spoke, our team members all blushed. ”
In the evening, we left the so-called station and passed the famous Chumar River Bridge. The bridge has 78 bridge holes that connect the passage of Tibetan antelope in the core area of the east-west migration of the Kunlun Mountains. At sunset, the Chumar River Bridge is like an ochre red belt on the land of the source of the three rivers, winding and stretching out to the sky.
After driving for another seven or eight hours, the altitude rose to 4600 meters. Late at night, we finally arrived at Tanggula Mountain Town, the first town of the Yangtze River. At night, the Tuotuo River is quiet, with only meltwater slowly flowing down from the Jianggudi Glacier at the source of the Yangtze River. Because it was too late, we temporarily stopped at the Yangtze River Source Station under the Tuotuo River Bridge.
The 109 National Highway of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Gela Section Oil Pipeline run through the town of Tanggulashan, and the Tuotuo River is getting busier and busier, and the garbage is also increasingly flooded. In order not to let the ecology of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau become a memory, in 2011, the non-governmental organization Green River built the Yangtze River Source Station here, attracting many volunteers to the source of the Yangtze River every year to do environmental protection public welfare.
When we arrived, Xiao Zhu, a volunteer who was sleeping with me at the station, had been in the Tuotuo River for a month and was about to return. She is a photographer who has done garbage surveys in tanggula mountain towns, counted birds in Bande Lake, and recorded many sunrises and sunsets on the Tuotuo River.
Every week, Xiao Zhu will go to the Tuotuohe Railway Station with volunteers to give a lecture. Trains connect Xining and Lhasa, often stopping at the Tuotuo River for only a minute or two. Taking advantage of this gap, they held up the sign that read, "Garbage does not fall to the ground, Qinghai-Tibet is more beautiful" and waved to the tourists in the train. Tuotuo River may have witnessed many stories, "Once, a sleeper aunt saw us waving and waved at us. Somehow, waving, the aunt began to wipe her tears from the carriage, and the train slowly drove away. ”
After staying in Sanjiangyuan for more than half a month, sometimes after the interview, we stood on the second floor of the station, watching the Tuotuo River in the morning light, waiting for the train to pass by on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, making a distant roar.
↑ Tuotuo River in the morning light, the train passes over the Qinghai-Tibet Railway
Sometimes, when we go out, we can meet the pika in the hole, look at people for a while, and then go into the hole. At the foot of the glacier, we are no longer afraid of the wind, sometimes carrying a camera machine, withstanding the wind and snow, and walking for four or five kilometers.
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