These are amazing!
 

Came in e-mail

Thousands of metres up the vertiginous slopes of Shifou Mountain in Hunan Province, China, a team of workers, operating with hardly any safety measures, are building a footpath.

(con't)

Footpath con't
 

The workers are building a plank road on the side of the mountain that, once it is finished, will stretch for 3km (9843 ft) and be China's longest sightseeing footpath.

And more Footpath!
 

48-year-old Yu Ji (below) is one of the workers and he has been working on high cliffs building such plank roads for more than 10 years. He comments: "Young people don't want this job, as it requires them to stay deep in the mountains for months or even years"

And onward!
 

Building a plank road on Shifou Mountain is difficult because the cliff stands vertical at 90 degrees, without any slope or alcoves.

See what you can accomplish when OSHA isn't involved?

These are great pictures. You really get a feel for the place and what they are doing. Crazy Chinese. Once that walkway is finished and used by thousands of people for a few years, I'd love to try it out myself.

That is really spectacular.

Fabulous! :eek:

One has to wonder how long that thing is gonna stay up there...

Quite a while, I'll guess. It's steel-reinforced concrete anchored deeply into solid rock. Actually I think the rock itself will be the weak point. Looking at the rock I think it might be limestone - there is a lot of that in China, and it is what forms the beautiful karst landscapes that they're probably visiting to look at. You can also see eroded dimpling in post 3 pic 2, which is typical of limestone. Limestone is water soluble and mobile at the best of times, and positively dissolves when exposed to even weak acid. Look at the smog in that valley! Every drop of rain will trickle mild acid down the face of that cliff, seeping into cracks and gaps, until one day ...

Or perhaps the most obvious risk is a big block of the cliff above coming loose and chashing down on the path.

I'd walk it, from a safety point of view, but I'm not sure why, given that the lovely view is pretty much clouded by smog. Yech.

chuckle :)