One day, two groups met each other in the forest.Before meeting they only saw the movement of bamboo,which was taken as the approach of a big animal.Everybody slowed their pace. As we got closer, something hairy approached us. The team members with guns were already aiming at it. Seeing that, I reminded them repeatedly that they could not pull the trigger before they clearly saw what animal was ahead. I reasoned that if it was a real animal, it must have a sharp sense of smell and would have turned and run away at the discovery of human Sichuan alpine Ecologe Study scent instead of coming directly towards us. When it walked even closer, we saw a black circle. At an even closer distance, it turned out to be Yang. He was wearing a serow fur jacket with the hairy side out and some black cloth wrapping around his head. After the false alarm, we went back to camp and I told them that generally the beasts of prey in Wolong were afraid of humans. At the smell of a human, they would run away. Even the seemingly awkward panda could leave a person far behind once it took flight.Those who had carried guns had experienced the troubles that go along with them. From that time on, nobody wanted to carry a gun.

When we started our research work around Niutou Mountain, we could come back and stay in one big tent.With the expansion of our research, we stayed on that group basis at night as we researched all the mountains in the area. Whenever possible, we returned to our camp,Gupo. If it was too far away to return, we stayed in a cliff cave or under a big tree getting a feel for living close tonature.

Along a zigzag valley, we walked on a deserted,meandering footpath, which was obstructed by shrubs and grass. Our trouser legs, socks and shoes were soon drenched with the morning dew. With each step, squishing sounds came from our feet. After a while, the warmth of the sun drove away the dew and the sounds from our shoes became weaker and weaker. However, we encountered another problem. There were lots of leeches and ticks in grass. While we were walking, we had to keep an eye on our legs to see whether there were any bloodsuckers attached to them.

After we reached the middle part of the mountain, the stream had even more twists and turns. We were forced to wade through the small stream that flowed over the ancient footpath in many places. Before our departure, we had put on our yak wool leg-wrappers, a special accessory for people living in the mountainous areas. The socks and shoes, which had only just dried from being drenc~hed bythe dew, were once again wet from our fquent wading through the stream. The squishing sounds from our shoes returned. The woolen leg-wrappers kept the water from reaching our shanks and the water on the wrappers was soon dried, but our two feet were still wet. We walked on in that way: first wet, then dry, then wet again.

Along the way we saw and heard the songs of many birds. Zhou was eager to learn. Whenever anything unfamiliar to him occurred, he would ask me about it. He wanted to learn how to identify birds when he saw them and from their songs. He even asked for detail at the sight of footmarks and dung left by wild animals. I taught him about animals and told him some stories about the capture of giant pandas by foreigners in Caopo Township in the 1930s

We were very excited at the occasional appearance of panda dung and the debris of bamboo sticks and twigs left over from their feeding. Our discussions naturally shifted to giant pandas. We forgot all the difficulties in the mountain climbing, which the great poet Li Bai thus described: "It is harder to walk the Sichuan road than to climb the blue sky". After 5--6 hours of climbing, we came to the pass of Tiantai Mountain (Heavenly Platform Mountain). At the pass, an elevation of over 3000 meters,the mountain slopes gently. We had a long rest there enjoying the vast mountains, quiet forests and full view of the scenery below us. Looking up, we saw Qianliangshan Sichuan alpine Ecology Study
Mountain and Four Girls Mountain. As the main peak of Qionglaishan Mountain, with an elevation of 6200 meters,the Four Girls Mountain reaches hi'gh into the sky.The stream below us wound through the hills, hiding from us now and then. With the green mountains and fresh air, we seemed to have entered a fairyland.