ICE ICE BABY! 🧊

So we made it to Yongcheng after 2 extra nights in Shandan due to bad weather.⁣

Yesterday we tried to leave Shandan in hopes that once we left the town the roads would be fine. Well the roads were treacherous! It took us that long to do 5 miles we accepted our fate, and returned to our hotel to wait out the bad weather. ⁣

We left again this morning and got through the town easily. It was clear that a lot of ice had thawed…then we got to the main road and we rolled upto these sheets of black ice.⁣

Look at how the ice has formed! They don’t grit the roads here but they do scrape the snow, which compacts it and it turns into ice. Later they go out with claw hammers, pickaxes to break the ice. The weather has been warm in the day but freezing at night so snow melts in the day then the water ices through the night – not ideal. ⁣This ice pictured isn’t getting the sun on it.

As we stared at the black ice we contemplated our options – should we go back and wait another day or carry on to Yongcheng and be prepared to walk and camp in minus temperatures. Afterall if the roads continued like this we’d never manage 70miles.⁣

Luckily those ice patches were around for maybe 1 mile and the rest was plain sailing.⁣

The worse part of the day was riding downhill which was savagely, savagely cold! So bloody cold! At one point we had to stop and do jumping jacks on the side of the road 😂

@ Yongchang