Travel: Skiing in Bipenggou 毕棚沟 - Sichuan's bridge to the Tibetan Plateau

Just about a year ago I went on a trip with my girlfriend and two of her friends to Bipenggou 毕棚沟, a beautiful scenic area that stretches from west Sichuan to the Tibetan Plateau. It's commonly referred to as a smaller Jiuzhaigou (one of the biggest travel spots in Sichuan). Despite following in the shadow of Jiuzhaigou's legacy, it is still a 100% recommendation from me.

Bipenggou is a breath taking scenic area filled with beautiful mountains, trees, rivers and waterfalls. During the fall the trees become every shade of red, orange and yellow creating the most perfect picture opportunity possible. This trip we went during February so we missed the autumn scenery by a long shot but that wasn't our goal in the first place, this trip was for the skiing!

A pavilion for resting on the 1-2 hour hike from the bus drop-off zone to the skii area. Hidden in the woods, it was really beautiful draped in the snow.

This photo is near the skiing area, it's decorated with lots of the colorful Tibetan flags and is surrounded by many gorgeous mountains. There are also a few hot springs at the waiting areas. I felt the water and it was a little too hot for me but my friends soaked their feet while we waited.

It was such a nice spot, had to take a photo with my girlfriend here as well.

Awesome wide shot of a lake between several mountains, the reflection in the water was surreal.

Standing in front of one of the small mountain streams during the hike up Bipenggou.

A better photo of just the stream by itself with several little waterfalls in the background. It was such a nice and peaceful area with just the soft whispers of the stream.

We finally got to the skiing area. We only booked an hour of skiing and I regret that a bit because it was such a fun time. It was my first time ever skiing but I didn't have any trouble with it, didn't even fall down once. My girlfriend and other friends had a bit of trouble at first but finally got the hang of it after not long. I can't remember the exact prices but it was something around 170 yuan per hour or something, don't take my word for it though, I just remember thinking it was just a tad pricey for only an hour. They were pretty stingy about the time as well, they started the time as soon as you paid and you easily spent the first 15-20 minutes just putting on your skii's and getting up the first hill. They also didn't call you when your time was about up and tried to charge us an extra hour when we went 3 minutes over.

It was a lot of fun though and I really loved skiing. They had 2 hills, one was a really small beginners hill and one was about 2x higher but it still wasn't very challenging. Just a 50-100m skii ride down. I'd love to go skiing again, although next time I'd like to find a bit more challenging of a course. I'd still recommend it though if you happen to be in Sichuan because the scenery is well worth the price of the skiing.

This photo is from our hotel area. We stayed out in a single hotel resting on the side of the road amongst all the mountains. They had a nice little pavilion area with those now familiar Tibetan flags and had a bbq grill outside to cook some awesome foods!

My girlfriend, myself and our 2 friends at the skiing area.

We ordered an entire lamb's leg at our hotel restaurant. It took them about 8 hours to prepare by grill and it was an amazing! They coated it in a lush helping of cumin, salt and red chili flakes to give it an amazing taste. The meat was super tender and extremely flavorful. Grilled lamb's leg is pretty common down in that area and I highly suggest you try it if you find yourself there! Just make sure you give them ample notice for the best experience possible!

The hotel offered us an amazing and simple breakfast. On the right side we had steamed buns, the middle had a combination of 4 different pickled vegetables and the left is a helping of boiled eggs. We split the steam buns open and filled them with the pickled vegetables to make a delicious breakfast sandwich!

One last picture of some of the lakeside scenery. I really can't recommend this place enough. I'v been to Jiuzhaigou 2-3 times now and I still think that Bipenggou is a much better experience despite Jiuzhaigou being the much more famous and more traveled location.