2015 High Bridge Trip Photo Album
2015 China High Bridge Trip Photo Album
Hubei and Hunan Provinces
The 2-week 2015 High Bridge trip was another wild adventure through China's most beautiful mountain provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan. As in past trips, our guests were mostly retirees from around the globe. Canadian Richard Scott returned for his second high bridge tour having first come along in 2013. Australian bridge engineer John Hart kept up the tradition of an Australian having been on all of my trips while Tadashi Ashimi became the first bridge fan from Japan to visit the high bridges of Western China. Rounding out the entourage was Damian Kulash of the U.S. who has always loved traditional Chinese stone bridges but was interested in experiencing a new type of colossal highway bridge that represent a new era of Chinese engineering. Our always helpful and knowledgeable translator Han Ruoyu was yet another bright Tongji University bridge engineering student.
As in previous high bridge tours, we came across many bridges that were in various stages of construction including the epic Qingshuihe suspension bridge, the soaring Beipanjiang Qinglong Railway arch and the towering Beipanjiang Duge and Yachi cable stayed bridges. Other record breaking spans included the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Footbridge that was half complete, still waiting for nicer weather before cable spinning could finally begin in the days after our visit.
In Western China the year of 2015 will definitely be remembered as one of seemingly endless rain. This afforded our group of bridge photographers some of the most vivid greenery imaginable during the occasional moments of sunshine. But if the sun was often playing hide and seek we were at least lucky that rain seemed to arrive only at night or when we were driving to our next bridge.
But if our trek was generally free of any China travel related mishaps, the second week threw us a surprise in the form of a head cold bug that spread around the SUV, first striking John Hart before a final advance on Richard Scott. Despite this discomfort, John and Richard were fighters and never backed away from another day of bridging even if their bodies were telling them to sleep all day in a hotel room.
As always this trip could not have happened without the driving and navigating skills of longtime driver Chen and another nice SUV that handled hundreds of kilometers of rough roads with no breakdown Luckily our group of gray-haired grandpas were up for anything and never hesitated or showed fear to visit any bridge I wanted to visit whether it required dodging highway traffic, climbing over a wall, hopping on a boat, hiking along a creek or taking a concrete slide down into a canyon.
Our new rental car held up well as it was put through an unusually high amount of abuse along more miles of rough, bumpy and broken roads than all of my previous China trips combined. The weather was only sunny half the time but we did manage to evade any rain for nearly the entire trip. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food even if they did not always know what kind of vegetable they were eating but by the end of the trip we all knew what kinds of meats we liked or wanted to avoid.
We are eternally grateful to the Chinese engineers and authorities we met who were kind, generous and always willing to let us climb on their bridges like children in a playground. These surprise tours took us above and below some of the most amazing spans in the history of bridge construction including an elevator ride up one of the world's tallest bridge towers, a walk through one of the world's largest suspension bridge trusses and a precarious hike across a chicken-wire footbridge nearly 300 meters high. A special thanks to Liupanshui County engineer Zhou Ping and the wonderful Chen family who treated us like royalty in their own personal kingdom - the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Park. Finally a thanks to all the Chinese locals who were always friendly and often curious as to why we would travel halfway around the world to visit their remote town or bridge.
Look for an even more exciting Chinese adventure in 2014 when we visit more than 75 of the world's highest spans including construction site visits to the highest road and railway bridges on earth!
The special spans visited during the first week included Yingwuzhou, Siduhe, Zhijinghe, Tieluoping, Longtanhe, Shuanghekou, Xiaohe, Caijiagou and Qiancaobei Bridges as well as a visit to Western China's most populous city of Chongqing where the world's longest span arch and beam bridges reside in the form of Chaotianmen and Shibanpo.
Our first meal together at a great dumpling restaurant near Tongji University. On the left is Richard Scott with twin brothers Ray and John Morrison. Image by Eric Sakowski / HighestBridges.com
All of my China trips seem to begin at Tongji University in Shangahi which has the best and most extensive bridge engineering courses of any school in China. Image by Richard Scott.
Image by John Morrison.
Tongji also has China's only Bridge Engineering library with hundreds of unique journals and books that can only be found here. Image by John Morrison.
The Shanghai Tower had just had just been topped out in August as the world's 2nd tallest skyscraper. Image by Eric Sakowski / HighestBridges.com
Our pre-trip day in Shanghai included a visit to Tongji University where scaled down versions of China's tallest skyscrapers are tested for earthquake resilience on giant shake tables. Image by Richard Scott.
The Shanghai Tower on the left surpassed the Shanghai World Financial Center on the right to become China's tallest skyscraper. Others will surpass both of them in the years to come. Image by Eric Sakowski / HighestBridges.com
Image by Eric Sakowski / HighestBridges.com
Image by Eric Sakowski / HighestBridges.com
I have known bridge engineer Shijie Du for more then 8 years since our first bridge trip in 2006. He now works across the street from Tongji University at the famous Tongji Architectural Design and Research Institute. He gave us an evening tour of the modern building where many of the firms architectural models are on display including the new 121-story Shanghai Tower. Image by Richard Scott.
There is even a model of the TJARD building headquarters that was once a major bus station before they reconfigured it into a modern office building. Image by Richard Scott.
Shijie Du and Bruce Lee watch the Morrison brothers battle each other with a game of Ping Pong. Image by Richard Scott.
Our first night was spent at Tonji University's Guest House. Image by Richard Scott.
We spent the afternoon along Shanghai's famous tourist street - East Nanjing Road. Image by John Morrison.
The E'gongyan Bridge was the first long span crossing in Chongqing City, opening in 2000 with a main span of 600 meters. Image by Eric Sakowski / HighestBridges.com
Click on Page 2 for Week Two with views of the Guizhou Province Bridges and More!
