West Sichuan · NW Yunnan · Tibet · Three Parallel Rivers
The grand crossing - eighteen days from Chengdu’s teahouses through Wolong’s pandas, the three holy mountains of Yading, the golden face of Meili Snow Mountain in Yunnan, and the Three Parallel Rivers, all the way to Lhasa.
The ride
The G318 is China's Route 66 - except it climbs from the Sichuan basin to the roof of the world. You start among teahouses and bamboo at 500 m, and twelve days later ride into Lhasa at 3,650 m, having crossed some of the highest driveable passes on Earth.
Between them: the hairpins of Zheduo Shan, the grasslands of Litang - one of the highest towns anywhere - the deep gorges of the Nu, Lancang and Jinsha rivers, the forests of Nyingchi, and the turquoise of Basum Tso. It is sealed tarmac the whole way, which makes it the perfect first plateau ride: hard enough to mean something, safe enough to enjoy.
We ride it as a private tour with a local travel guide, a road captain, a mechanic, and a support 4×4 carrying your luggage, spare fuel, tools, and oxygen. We've run it more than forty times.
Five passes crest above 4,000 m. We never gain the whole height in a day - the route is built so your body acclimatises as you climb.
The route, day by day
The fine print, in plain words
See it to believe it
Photography by Liu Bin, Wang Lei, Min Zhao · Greatway field archive
Dates & enquiry
Private departures on your dates, roughly April to October. Tell us when you're free and how many are riding - a booking consultant will get back to you within 24 hours.
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