Yading is a sanctuary built around three holy peaks — Chenrezig, Jampelyang and Chanadorje — and the lakes that sit under them. It is also, on most days, a busy park. The two facts produce two entirely different trips of the same name, and the difference is decided by one logistics choice: where you sleep.
The two trips.
Trip one is the day-tripper’s circuit: shuttle, boardwalk, the shuttle again. It reaches Pearl Lake, and in fair weather the higher pair, Milk and Five-Colour, above Luorong pasture. It is genuinely good — the peaks are the peaks whatever time you reach them. Trip two starts where trip one ends: the lakes past the end of the boardwalk system, walked at your own pace, in the light before the gates open, by someone who spent the night inside. Our eight-day tour is built as trip two, with four of its seven nights inside the sanctuary.
Pearl Lake, and the pasture under the peaks.
The first day inside is deliberately short: into the park and up to Pearl Lake, the classic first view of Chenrezig’s snow pyramid across still water. The second is Luorong pasture, the wide meadow under all three peaks where the walking is optional and the sitting is not. Blue sheep work the crags above the pasture — the sanctuary’s animals keep to the fringes, and the fringes start right there.
The big lake day.
Day five is the one people come for: Milk Lake and Five-Colour Lake, the pair of lakes at 4,500-odd metres below Jampelyang, reached on a real walking day out of the pasture. The route page calls it “the big one” without irony. Starting from inside the park turns it from a forced march against the shuttle timetable into a day with room to breathe — which at that altitude is not a luxury but the whole design.
The hidden lakes.
East of the classic circuit sits a second system the day visitors never see: Boyul Lake and Frog Lake, reached on walking days that leave the boardwalks entirely. Boyul is the tour’s highest walking day at 4,700 metres — the park’s own highest pass, above it, is 4,900 — and it is the day the flexible pace matters most: distances adjust day by day, and the hidden lakes are where the adjustment earns its keep.
Why four nights inside matters.
Three reasons, in order. First, light: you are on the trails before the gates open, which at 4,000-plus metres is when the mountains are at their best. Second, pace: the walking days flex around how the group is acclimatising, and a fixed base removes the pressure to outwalk the day. Third, sanity: the middle of the sanctuary at ten in the morning belongs to the people who slept in it. Altitude still needs planning — our altitude guide covers the pacing, and the park gate is not the place to learn it.
The closure, and the window around it.
The upper park closes from mid-November to mid-April — a hard administrative line, not a weather forecast, and one the routes treat as fixed. The working window is June to early November, with the shoulder months of June and late October quieter than the core. The tour flies out of Daocheng on day eight, which turns the return from a two-day drive back over the passes into an hour above the clouds.
Closure dates, altitudes and the night count checked 7 November 2026 against the route page.
Walk it?
The Yading hiking & photo tour, 8 days
The Daocheng Yading guide