Teh One Who Knocks
12-11-2014, 12:09 PM
By India Sturgis for MailOnline
It may look like a heart-stopping commute but for villagers living in Yushan in China this cable car is their umbilical chord to the outside world.
The one kilometre line carries supplies and people daily, saving the mountaintop community from making a grueling one day journey down into the valley and then up the other side over a narrow and dangerous pathway.
The cables are strung between two high cliff faces with a steel cage suspended below to carry visitors, locals and tools in and out of the village.
http://i.imgur.com/eYlM1dK.png
The village is in a staggeringly beautiful location but it gets few visitors as most people do not want to risk the precarious zip line stretching for a dizzying 1,575ft above the valley floor.
People have been living in the village of Yushan in Hefeng county, in China's Hubei province, for hundreds of years, keen to exploit the fertile soil and the safety provided from their mountaintop location.
http://i.imgur.com/JoCDUKa.png
http://i.imgur.com/uW0Lo3H.png
Until recently, inhabitants rarely needed to access the outside world for anything other than buying tools and kept themselves to themselves.
But with the arrival of the modern world, televisions, mobile phones and computers became a prerequisite and people simply wanted to work in jobs outside the village, and that changed.
http://i.imgur.com/ktHqFhz.png
While it could have spelled disaster for the remote community, a local, inspired by Alpine cable cars, came up with the idea of building their own.
They bought a second-hand cable from a ski resort in Europe and connected it to a homemade cable car.
The journey takes just a few minutes, as opposed to a day, meaning the children can get to school and adults to work.
http://i.imgur.com/hZyzHUX.jpg
Village elder Xiong Sun, 79, said: 'Our lift, of which we are enormously proud and which has been running without problems for almost two decades, means that life can go on as it would in any normal village despite the fact that Yushan is located where normally only eagles would be prepared to make their homes.'
http://i.imgur.com/w3W0K4V.png
Since it was built it has been operated and maintained by local man Zhang Xinjian, 35, who said even when he was sick he was expected to turn up for work because otherwise everybody would be stranded.
He said: 'I started to work at this spot since the rope was set up. No one else would take the job. As my father was the village head he had to assign me to do it and I've been doing it for 15 years.'
Lubricating the cables once a week is the most dangerous part of the job. Zhang has to take the cart and apply oil onto the cables along the way.
It may look like a heart-stopping commute but for villagers living in Yushan in China this cable car is their umbilical chord to the outside world.
The one kilometre line carries supplies and people daily, saving the mountaintop community from making a grueling one day journey down into the valley and then up the other side over a narrow and dangerous pathway.
The cables are strung between two high cliff faces with a steel cage suspended below to carry visitors, locals and tools in and out of the village.
http://i.imgur.com/eYlM1dK.png
The village is in a staggeringly beautiful location but it gets few visitors as most people do not want to risk the precarious zip line stretching for a dizzying 1,575ft above the valley floor.
People have been living in the village of Yushan in Hefeng county, in China's Hubei province, for hundreds of years, keen to exploit the fertile soil and the safety provided from their mountaintop location.
http://i.imgur.com/JoCDUKa.png
http://i.imgur.com/uW0Lo3H.png
Until recently, inhabitants rarely needed to access the outside world for anything other than buying tools and kept themselves to themselves.
But with the arrival of the modern world, televisions, mobile phones and computers became a prerequisite and people simply wanted to work in jobs outside the village, and that changed.
http://i.imgur.com/ktHqFhz.png
While it could have spelled disaster for the remote community, a local, inspired by Alpine cable cars, came up with the idea of building their own.
They bought a second-hand cable from a ski resort in Europe and connected it to a homemade cable car.
The journey takes just a few minutes, as opposed to a day, meaning the children can get to school and adults to work.
http://i.imgur.com/hZyzHUX.jpg
Village elder Xiong Sun, 79, said: 'Our lift, of which we are enormously proud and which has been running without problems for almost two decades, means that life can go on as it would in any normal village despite the fact that Yushan is located where normally only eagles would be prepared to make their homes.'
http://i.imgur.com/w3W0K4V.png
Since it was built it has been operated and maintained by local man Zhang Xinjian, 35, who said even when he was sick he was expected to turn up for work because otherwise everybody would be stranded.
He said: 'I started to work at this spot since the rope was set up. No one else would take the job. As my father was the village head he had to assign me to do it and I've been doing it for 15 years.'
Lubricating the cables once a week is the most dangerous part of the job. Zhang has to take the cart and apply oil onto the cables along the way.