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“After the market in Guangzhou,” Jack said wryly, “I’d say that the likelihood of us encountering a tiger is zero.”

Not quite, as it turns out. There were indeed still tigers in Yunnan Province. Scientists had, in fact, recently filmed an Indo-Chinese Tiger in the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve near the border with Burma and Laos. And indeed, in 2001, tigers near one village managed to kill six buffalo and twenty-four cows. In some parts of Yunnan, tiger prints are said to be a not entirely unusual thing to see. It’s one of those things you like to hear in China: Other people have seen tiger prints. I, however, did not want to see them. I just liked knowing they were there, out there, somewhere—just not here.

The trail was becoming more dramatic. We passed a farm, beside which a boy had clambered up a tree and begun to sing. What a pastoral hamlet, I thought, nestled here in the gentle slopes below Jade Snow Mountain. This was China as I had envisioned it. A warm breeze stirred the air. The river below had the faint bluish color of ice. The sky had a deep, purple tinge and the mountains glistened with snow. And then, as I walked around a bend fringed by tall grass, I encountered a snake.

I am, frankly, a complete sissy when it comes to snakes. I do not want to say I shrieked like a little girl. So I won’t say it.

“I think it’s dead,” Jack observed.

“Are you sure? Why don’t you throw a rock at it?”

Gingerly, I made my way around the snake, which on closer inspection was indeed dead, extremely dead, had already been munched upon by some beast or bird. But perhaps there were others, a multitude of serpents in the grass, just waiting for some hiker to pass on the trail, and I began to wonder about the snakes of Yunnan Province, and whether they were venomous or not. It was a familiar sensation. I recalled my time in the South Pacific. You think you’re in paradise, when, in fact, you’re residing in a den of foot-long, poisonous centipedes.

I resolved to turn my mind off. There was too much beauty here to be savored. The awesome magnificence of the natural world was all around us. And so I settled into the pleasant rhythm of bringing myself ever upward, following this trail that carried us higher and higher above the river. We walked on until we stumbled into the village of Nuoyu, where we found the Naxi Family Guesthouse, a wooden farmhouse with corn drying from the walls, where we could replenish water and have a bite to eat. We settled ourselves at a table in a courtyard that offered a dramatic view of the mountains.

“Okay. It’s been nice knowing you,” Jack said, sweating freely and breathing hard. “This is where I leave. I’ve decided to join the Naxis.”

I laughed, but in truth we were not even close to halfway. It would be about another 3,000 feet up before we saw another guesthouse, and we had about five hours left to do it before darkness.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Jack groaned as we got to our feet.

“I’ve been telling you all week that we’re hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge.”

“But I didn’t think you meant it.”

But I did.

We returned to the trail, which was becoming ever more interesting, switching freely from dirt path to stony cliff-side ledges that swiftly narrowed. It was ten feet wide. Not so bad, I’d think. Then it was five feet. Um. Three feet. And because we had already ascended a thousand or two feet in elevation, there was now genuine danger. Because it would be so easy to topple off a three-foot ledge, particularly if, like me, you might be susceptible to wooziness when confronted with perilous heights.

“You okay, there?” Jack inquired as we made our way over one such ledge. “I’ve never seen anyone hug a mountainside quite like that.”

“I’m not so good with heights,” I breathed.

“Well, you might have thought of that earlier, don’t you agree?”

We clambered on, a pair of hikers on a mountainside high above the torrent of the river, one suppressing his fear of heights,