Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon
The Dihangschluchten, Yarlung Zangbo Canyon also (Simplified Chinese :雅鲁藏布 大 峡谷) or Tsangpo Gorge, are a deep and long canyon in China ⊙ 29.7697494.98985Koordinaten: 29 ° 46 ' 11.06 "N, 94 ° " O. the Yarlung Tsangpo, usually only briefly " Zangbo "or" Tsangpo 59 ' 23.46 " called ( " the Cleansing " ), the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra and its source at Kailash. From there it extends for 1700 km almost straight east and drains the adjacent northern part of the Himalayas, before it enters the gorge near Pe in Tibet. The canyon has in the section in which he south of Gyala Peri ( 7294 m) an arc around the Namjagbarwa ( 7782 m) describes a length of slightly more than 240 kilometers. The river cuts into the eastern Himalayas and overcomes between Pe and the end of the gorge a descent from 3,000 m to 300 m. After this section it occurs after Arunachal Pradesh in India and is there for the Brahmaputra.
Shangri -La
The beauty of the canyons, their remoteness and mystery are the reason that is suspected, the ravines had in 1933 the famous Shangri -La served in the book Lost Horizon by James Hilton as a template.
Dam project
While the government authorities have announced the establishment of a " Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon " National Park, plans are known in contrast to curb the water of Tsanpo by a causeway and use for power generation as well as to supply water to other regions.
China wants in Medog ( Metog ) on the north- eastern point of the river loop around the Namjagbarwa, in the Yarlung Tsangpo changes its direction from northeast to southwest, build a dam to produce hydroelectricity. He is said to be 160 meters high and would be the largest hydroelectric plant in the world with 26 turbines and a planned capacity of 40,000 MW.
The project is controversial, and particularly from India comes fierce criticism because negative impact on the local residents downstream feared.
Ecosystem
The gorge has a unique ecosystem with plant and animal species that are poorly understood and almost free of human influence. An exception is, for example, the hunting of living here tribes on the rare Takin. The climate ranges from subtropical to arctic.
The ' Mount Everest of Rivers "
Since the 1990s the Yarlung Tsangpo was the target of a number of expeditions that were carried out by groups that are concerned with the exploration of river routes and the white water rafting. The river was called " rivers of Mount Everest " because of the extreme conditions. The first attempt to cross the gorge with the kayak was made by a Japanese group in 1993 that one of its members lost in the river.
In October, sponsored by the National Geographic Society kayak expedition attempted to descend down the gorge of the Tsangpo. From unexpectedly high water brought into distress, the expedition ended in tragedy when the Kayakprofi Doug Gordon was killed.
The biggest waterfalls in the river, the " hidden " cases of Tsangposchlucht were discovered for the Western world in 1998 by a group of three Americans and their leaders, having already had 1924 reversed an earlier expedition in search of the fabled waterfalls empty-handed. The explorers estimated the height of the falls to more than thirty meters. The waterfalls were considered just like the rest of the Pemakogebietes of the Buddhist inhabitants as sacred and were kept hidden from outsiders as well as from the Chinese authorities by the end of the 1990s.
In January and February 2002 an international group achieved the first successful descent of the upper Tsangposchlucht.
Beyül
Pemakö or Pemako is the area of Dihangschluchten and also the area at the lower end. In Pemakö it is, the book by Ian Baker, according to a Beyül, both geographically and spiritually and religiously a " Pure Land " or " hidden land". In the south, near the Indian border is a sacred mountain.