Why is a self-driving route that is almost entirely asphalted, still called the "devil" route by self-driving donkey friends? Is it the donkey friend who deliberately exaggerates the difficulty of the crossing, or is there another reason? With this question in mind, I began my self-driving journey in mid-October this year, and the answer may only be to find it myself.
If you're an avid self-driving traveler, I'm sure you've heard of the Luya Line. The name of the route is not used in the official map. So far, many navigations have not regarded this route as a self-driving route, so when you cross this route, you cannot rely on navigation to cross the whole process.
This is the fork in the line between Aden and Luya
This is the Luya line from Lugu Lake to Aden, which is often referred to as the "devil" line by donkey friends. There should be three Luya lines, there are eastern, western and central lines, we often say that the Luya line generally refers to the western line. This route is about 300 kilometers long, because this route is the most beautiful, and there is a very original ancient village on the way called Naxi Ancient Village (Russian Tooth Village), so this route is also the first choice for most self-driving enthusiasts to cross a route.
Among them, the Naxi ancient village is a place that many self-driving enthusiasts want to go to, and want to see this ancient village that many donkey friends call the most primitive village today. There is also a saying in the circles of our travels: go to Lijiang to see the ancient city, go to hungry teeth to see the ancient village. This ancient village refers to the large village of Oya passing through on the Luya Line.
In fact, my topic today does not want to introduce the scenery along this route too much, but one thing that many of us will always question, that is, can this route really be called the title of "devil" route? After all, it is a route that is paved almost all the time.
Scenery along the way for the first half
Yes, we all know that the so-called most difficult route into Tibet - the Prochacha Line, a 300-kilometer washboard road, does not have such a loud title, why this line can be controlled and has such a "wind pulling" title.
Did we overestimate the line, or did we have an impression of it that is still stuck in the period of a few years ago? I think only if I take a trip in person can I have an objective judgment about it.
Although I have already walked through the 7 routes into Tibet, I have made sufficient preparations for taking the Luya Line, including psychologically, and I am ready to see what "superiority" is there in this "devil" road?
In order to minimize the difficulty of crossing the Luya Line, I first chose to cross in the middle of October, because this time has passed the local rainy season, and the most important thing is that the scenery along the way is definitely much better than the single cool color of winter, and it will not be much worse than summer.
As I expected, the scenery along the way did not disappoint me, and the fairytale autumn colors of Daocheng stretched all the way to the first half of the Luya Line. I began to waver in the "devil" title of the Luya Line, perhaps because there were too many of us and really exaggerated the difficulty of crossing the line.
A gravel road between Russian Teeth and the village of Russian Tooth
However, just when I began to slowly doubt this and my nervous heart began to relax, the "devil" of the Luya line appeared. Not far after the Russian tooth, it opened the washboard road mode, all the way to the Russian tooth village, the whole 30 kilometers or so, about 20 kilometers is a washboard road, the whole road is built on the cliff, the road surface is all gravel left after the landslide, and the gravel is very sharp, which is a great test for us to cross the tires of self-driving vehicles, after all, this is not an ordinary dirt road, but a washboard road paved with sharp gravel.
Fortunately, this section of the road is not long, and before reaching the Oga Village (Naxi Ancient Village), this section of the road is replaced by a newly repaired asphalt road. As if the coming of the "devil" was only brief, I once again began to suspect that this "honorific title" really did not fit the path at all.
Just as my heart was going back and forth like this, the road took another big turn. Coming out of the village of Oga, although it seems to be a newly paved asphalt road in front of me, but everywhere you can see stones falling from the mountain, some large and small, the diameter of the large stones even exceeds my height, and this kind of collapsed boulder pavement is seen everywhere, almost a few kilometers will appear two or three sections, I began to worry about this road situation.
As expected, shortly after leaving the village of Oya, arriving near a village called Obi, a boulder with a diameter of nearly ten meters smashed into the middle of the road like a "flying stone outside the sky", and the entire boulder completely blocked the road, and people and cars under this boulder had a visual difference between giants and dwarfs.
Boulders block my way
Through the knowledge of the road conditions by local vehicles, it is clear that the boulder has been here for several days. The road maintenance staff did not deal with it in time, obviously, the reason is that the boulder is really too big, which is not within their capabilities.
In the face of such a huge thing, I can only be helpless, there is no other way, either to return to the same way, declare this crossing failure, or ...!
In the end, I decided to follow the local vehicle detour, but the detour was a very steep mountain road, which was not within the range of my two-wheel drive, but fortunately, the well-meaning local villagers and the passing drivers were together, and they helped me push the car to the top of the mountain (exaggerated enough, if you don't believe it, you can look through my previous video recordings).
Passing through Obi Village is the "steel bridge" that we often mention in the reading guide. After crossing the steel bridge, the Devil's Road seems to have begun to really enter a "active" state. In the nearly thirty kilometers after that, in addition to the narrow lane (the wrong car almost needs to stop to pass, you can imagine how narrow it is), there are also collapsed sections that you will see every one or two kilometers, and there is... That even requires stopping, reversing and turning sharp corners again.
Steel bridges
The whole section is such a winding road, many sections of the road do not have guardrails, on the one hand, there are soft mountains where landslides can be seen everywhere, and on the other side are cliffs of the abyss.
I believe that this section of the road, if the average speed of driving to more than 30 kilometers per hour, then you are really joking with your own life, I stopped and walked on this road, it took nearly two or three hours.
After this road, we will arrive at Yiji Township, from here, all the way to Lugu Lake, is a very good asphalt road, although occasionally there will be a little bit of landslide damage to the road, but compared with the front, this can already be called "high-speed".
Having said all this, netizens will definitely question, this is what you call the "devil's road"? That's an exaggeration. truly! If that's all there is to it, the title of "devil" is obviously overestimating it, but I have this understanding of this path.
The Luya Line is nearly 300 kilometers long, of which the nearly 120-kilometer section from Aden to Oyatong is indeed a very good section of the road, which is the standard appearance of ordinary provincial highways and winding roads.
However, after nearly 200 kilometers of road, we can count how many landslides there are? This is probably the most frequent line I've ever seen in a collapsed section, not one of them.
The section of the road that comes to the Chain Bridge
According to my rough estimates, there are at least nearly 100 collapsed sections, and these nearly 100 collapsed sections may not bring you too much difficulty in the spring and autumn. But once it comes to the rainy season, I believe that this hundred landslides, if you can cross, you can happen to encounter no landslides, so the chance will be pitiful. After all, self-driving travel, no one is willing to accept such a low probability of success.
Once a landslide is encountered, the passage will inevitably be hindered, and even personal danger. Some collapsed sections will be blocked directly by large diameter stones, and even hard-core off-road will be powerless.
In fact, the real "devil" of the Luya Line is not those so-called washboard roads, nor those sharp turns, nor the cliffs that make you feel dizzy. The real "devil" comes from the rainy season, and when the rainy season comes, the nearly 100 easy to collapse sections, the "devil" will be everywhere.
If you want to cross the Luya West Line, please remember the names of the key villages and towns in the article, because the navigation will not recommend this route so far, we can only follow these place names and follow the signs along the way.
There are only two gas stations near Aden
There are also gas stations along the way are not evenly distributed, from Lugu Lake to Aden direction of about two hundred kilometers, during this period there are no regular gas stations.
On the way, the main places for convenient accommodation are Orega Village and Yiji Township, the whole process is recommended to plan a two-day crossing, the first night can be in the Russian Tooth Village accommodation, but also can carefully taste the ancient village style.
Text/Photo: Bread (a man whose body and soul are on the road)
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