The National Highway No.318 Sichuan-Tibet Highway is 2,149 km long, crossing 12 mountains with an average altitude of over 4,000 meters, and passing many major rivers including Jinsha River, Lancang River, and Nu River.

More than 60 years ago, soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, engineers and workers of all ethnicities used tools like hammers, chisels, shovels, and pickaxes to construct such a road to connect Tibet to inland China.

Every year, more than 10 thousand people travel on this road by bicycle to reach Tibet. Six years ago, a group of young college teachers and students from Southwest Jiaotong University also started their journey on the highway. They also recorded their journey during the 28 days’ riding from Chengdu to Lhasa. And two members of the group, Liang Bibo and Sun Honglin, both teachers from the university, turned the more than 9,000 minutes of footage into the 90-min long documentary, called One Thousand Mountains.

Recently, this documentary made its debut online. The creators hope the documentary could honor the people who made sacrifices for the Sichuan-Tibet Highway.

(You may watch the documentary here: https://v.qq.com/x/page/w0864n68k0p.html)

The group reach Litang in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

Riding on the road.