West Xue Trail D5 Waypoint
19 Jul 2025 14 waypoints 20 photos 13.24 km
D5 Itinerary
Leaving Pipida Campground, about 90 minutes ahead brings you to the junction campsite, where you'll see a 'just keep walking' sign; continuing another 2 hours gets you to a water source, a good spot for a quick refill, since before long you'll be tackling the last Baiyue peak of this trip, Zhongxue Mountain.
Zhongxue Mountain
About 90 minutes past the water source, you'll see the sign for Zhongxue Mountain on the left side of the trail. Across from the giant tree next to the sign, as marked at Waypoint 82, there's a water source — top up there before pushing on. The online record for Zhongxue Mountain gives a round trip of 4 hours; since it's quite steep, if you're short on stamina or time and want to avoid coming down in the dark, I'd suggest skipping it and making it up on a future reverse-direction trip. Under normal circumstances Zhongxue Mountain isn't difficult — the issue is that by the time you reach it on a one-way traverse, your body has already built up several days of fatigue, so use your own judgment. Several stretches of this peak have red flags tied up to prevent getting lost, so it can be treated entirely as a single-line out-and-back. Since you've come this far, might as well go up and take a look. The last 70 meters of climbing to the Zhongxue Mountain Triangulation Point has several steep roped sections. After climbing all the way up, you reach the Zhongxue Mountain Triangulation Point at 3173m elevation; there's no view from the summit, just a small clearing surrounded by trees.
Retrace your steps back to the forest road, continuing on past the water source at around 23.5K, and camp overnight at around 23K.
Trail Log
71 Just keep walking
3,437 m2,407↓2 h 9 min 1.98 km ↓527 m
72 Water source
3,437 m2,407↓1 h 35 min 2.62 km ↑80 m ↓90 m
73 Toward Zhongxue Mountain
3,437 m2,407↓51 min 930 m ↑310 m
74 Keep it up
3,437 m2,407↓35 min 550 m ↑152 m
75 Signal spot
3,437 m2,407↓26 min 350 m ↑88 m
76 Keep moving
3,437 m2,407↓35 min 300 m ↑160 m
77 Zhongxue Mountain Triangulation Point
3,437 m2,407↓26 min 190 m ↓79 m
79 Several steep roped climbs
3,437 m2,407↓43 min 660 m ↓245 m
80 Big mushroom
3,437 m2,407↓55 min 1.09 km ↓376 m
81 Zhongxue Mountain done — thank you, mountain spirits
3,437 m2,407↓10 min 140 m
82 Water sourceMentioned in text
3,437 m2,407↓2 min 40 m
83 26K Big Campground
3,437 m2,407↓47 min 2.23 km ↑66 m ↓42 m
84 Water source
3,437 m2,407↓12 min 220 m ↓46 m
85 Camping at around 23K
3,437 m2,407
Start of record06:40 3416 m 0 km Pipida Campground
↓1 h 23 min 1.94 km ↑19 m ↓446 m
End of record17:29 2486 m 13.24 km 23K Campground
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