Like all sites of touristic value in China, the local government has erected a modern building at the mouth of the canyon leading to the arch for the sole purpose of collecting money. Eric Shipton's biography is further validated, and since then the arch has been called 'Shipton's Arch.'įast forward to today, and much more has changed in this region in the past 15 years than the thousands of year prior. After consulting with nearby villagers, in some cases the same ones who met Shipton more than 50 years prior, they finally rediscovered the arch. In the year 2000, National Geographic sent out a team of explorers to settle this game of fact or fiction - they set off to Kashgar to locate this arch. Years have past, and although reports have surfaced in Europe and America of this massive arch, doubts crept up when no proof was presented. After several failed attempts, he finally "discovered" the arch, and became the first to put its place in world geography.īut like all good stories, it doesn't end there. Stationed in Kashgar during World War 2 as a British consul, he heard of reports of an arch of exceeding height in the inhospitable mountains to the west and soon set off to find it. Famed explorer and mountaineer Eric Shipton, known for his Himalayan ascents, was no exception. But serving no real purpose other than its magnificence and posing a dangerous passageway to its base, this arch would easily be forgotten, Westerners, particularly those adventures of the twentieth century, have a thing for records and discovery. This arch, I would assume, had been discovered and gazed upon by the native wanderers and sheepherders for centuries. When one takes into account its staggering height (considering its nearly four times the height of the next tallest arch - Fairy bridge in Guangxi) combined with the puzzling fact it has remained a mystery until very recently, the story behind this rock reignites modern day exploration. This arch, later called Shipton's Arch in honor of the first Westerner to witness this colossus, comes with an intriguing history so bizarre until you realize the true barreness and harshness of this environment. This is the Earth's tallest natural arch, standing at an impressive 1,500 feet (460 meters). A natural wonder so improbable and implausible, stuck in the middle of a labyrinth of sharp terraces, cavernous ravines, and erosionable slopes, the local Kyrgyz shepherds even forgot of its whereabouts. A geological structure, so immense, it was placed in the Guinness Book of World Records at the turn of the twentieth century, only to be taken out due to disbelief of its existence.
0 kommentar(er)
