Devil's Journey: The First Time Chinese Journalists Crossed the Four Great Unmanned Regions on an Expedition: The First Time Chinese Journalists Crossed the Four Great Unmanned Regions on an Expedition

Author: Deng Zhiyong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: The "China Journalists Western Action" scientific expedition team, which included special correspondents from our newspaper, recently achieved a historic feat of the first time in human history to continuously cross the four major lifeless zones—Lop Nur, Altun Mountains, Hoh Xil, and Northern Tibet—through the Western region. The participating journalists will present the entire process of this expedition, the little-known current state within the lifeless zones, and the stories of the team members' adventures under harsh conditions in the book "Scientific Expedition in the Lifeless Zones." The "China Journalists Western Action" aims to call for's attention to the ecological protection and construction in the western region through this environmental campaign. By taking practical actions, it seeks to awaken public conscience, urging people to fulfill their ecological protection responsibilities while developing the Northwest. This "grand crossing" was hailed by the international exploration community as "the most perilous wilderness on earth." The crossing route was extremely challenging, passing through the "Sea of Death"—Lop Nur, then entering the Altun Mountains and Hoh Xil from Ruqiang, crossing nearly 100 lakes and rivers such as Yueya and Qingshui, and finally climbing the Kunlun Mountains to reach the Northern Tibet lifeless zone. The entire journey covered over 15,000 kilometers and lasted 50 days. The team traversed the lowest-altitude, hottest, and driest deserts in China, as well as the highest-altitude, coldest, and most desolate plateaus. Without survival experience or training, the journalists faced extreme heat, extreme cold, severe hypoxia, exhaustion, disorientation, illness, loneliness, and the threat of death. In the end, with the rescue and assistance of local military and civilian personnel in Xinjiang and Tibet, the China Journalists Scientific Expedition Team finally bid farewell to death, emerged from the lifeless zones, and successfully reached the destination of this expedition—Lhasa. They completed the historically unprecedented great feat with honor.