Top Ten China Off-the-Beaten-Path Adventures

Grab your floaties for the twenty-five-foot falls of the Tsangpo

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Call it the Everest of rivers. The Tsangpo River spews foam and fury, and the tracks paralleling the river—narrow, slippery, and often impassable—aren't much better. Guides say that no foreigner has ever succeeded in trekking the entire course of Tibet's raging river.

The truly brave may hire guides and follow a stretch of the remote river as it winds around the eastern portion of the Himalayas. The river runs past the peaks of Gyala Pelri (21,700 feet) and Nmache Barwa (23,470 feet), several bamboo forests, and a snow ridge. The roaring Tsangpo rushes through a series of cataracts and switchbacks before dropping 9,400 feet to the plain of India over a bed of submerged boulders.

Plan ahead. This trip requires serious training and planning.