Climbing to clean mountains

The ice and snow covered Glacier Park has long been one of Lijiang’s hottest tickets – however throngs of tourists can sometimes put a strain on sanitation in an area of such natural beauty.

The park sits atop Yulong Snow Mountain at an altitude of 4,680 meters – a height at which oxygen canisters need to be used to avoid visitors experiencing altitude sickness.

A sanitation team of 17 gets to work on the mountain at 7:20 each day to ensure it is pristine before thousands of visitors arrive. The work continues for almost 12 hours, according to Shi Qing vice-general manager of Lijiang Yulong Tourism – the park operator.

In 2016, 1,200 garbage bags, filled mostly with oxygen canisters, were collected and carted down the mountainside.

A sanitation worker lumps four large bags of litter down the mountain. [Photo/Yunnan.cn]

Li Zhuojin, leader of the mountain sanitation team, said each visitor brings their own oxygen canister up the mountain, but sometimes the shear awe and wonder of the views they experience means they forget to take the canisters back down with them.

A 620-meter walkway hugging the edge of Yulong Snow Mountain is the toughest task for sanitation workers. It is the only option for visitors to get the highest glacier and the sanitation workers, straining under the weight of heavy bags, risk altitude sickness themselves.

Each workers must traverse the walkway four times a day, collecting at least 16 bags of rubbish each, while navigating the many tourists on the steps.

Two cleaners, secured by ropes, risk their lives to collect garbage on a cliff face at the Yulong Snow Mountain scenic spot in Lijiang, Southwestern China’s Yunan province. [Photo/Yunnan.cn]

From January to March this year, some 8,000 tourists visit Glacier Park on Yulong Snow Mountain each day for a view of the grand mountains and silver white snow.

The hard work of the sanitation workers raises a bigger issue facing many of China’s most popular tourist spots – that is litter, and visitors’ awareness of the impact of their actions. Better education would result in less litter and a better reputation for Chinese tourists across Asia and the rest of the world.

To try to combat this, in 2015, the National Tourism Bureau issued the Tentative Regulations on the Management of uncivilized Tourist Behavior, the first national-level legislation seeking to crack down on bad behavior by tourists.

Yulong Snow Mountian is the landmark of Lijiang and a beautiful backdrop for other tourist attractions around the city in Yunnan province. [Photo by Zhang Wenyin provided to China Daily]