Gobi March (China) 2003
The Gobi March 2003 course was held around the famous city of Dunhuang in Gansu Province, home to one of the world's most remarkable examples of Buddhist art, the Mogao Caves. The Gobi March began in a remote village called Anxi, in a several-thousand-year-old fort. Just as the Gobi March was about to begin, hundreds, perhaps thousands of villagers, showed up by way of donkey, tractor, motorbike and foot to send off the competitors into the great Gobi Desert. The course meandered through Subei Mongolian Autonomous County , which claims Ghenghis Khan as one of its descendents. The people of Subei came from miles to join competitors at the end of Stage 2 and performed traditional dances and songs. The overall course consisted of rolling hills, a long canyon with dozens of river crossings, a high altitude ascent across plains, an ascent to the top of 14,000-foot (4267-meter) Heavenly Lake, a pristine lake, and a 50-mile (80-kilometer) stage across rolling Gobi Desert landscape which passed by yurts and ended on the edge of the Mogao Caves. Competitors were guided through the Gobi by an incredible full moon. The final stage was a traverse of the steep Mingsha Hills (massive sand dunes) which then passed by ancient Beacon Towers, once used to send up smoke signals to warn of a pending invasion, and several kilometers on the edge of Dunhuang to the courtyard of a traditional Ming Dynasty hotel.
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