Yǒng yù: Sānxiá zhī diān, yī yǎn wàng jìn qiān lǐ jiāng. — Above the gorges, from the summit of the Three Gorges, one glance takes in a thousand li of river.
The Summit of the Three Gorges (三峡之巅) is the highest viewpoint over the gorges, a cliff-edge terrace high on Chijia Mountain (赤甲山) on the north bank, directly above the gate of Kuimen. Where the gorge floor experience is one of being enclosed by stone, this is its exact opposite: you rise above the walls and the whole watercourse unfolds beneath you at once. From here the Yangtze does not look like a river so much as a drawn line — a bright thread that enters at Kuimen, bends away east, and vanishes into the marching ridges of the far gorges. On a clear morning the White Emperor City sits small across the water, and the cliffs that tower from the river below are reduced to folds in a green carpet.
The summit is a place of light. It faces east over the gorges, so sunrise here is one of Fengjie’s set-piece sights: the first sun strikes the far cliffs and the deep water in turn, and sea-of-clouds that gathers in the gorge below the terrace often means you stand above a slow white tide with only the highest peaks breaking through. Sunset turns the stone warm and lays the river in shadow long before the terrace goes dark. Photographers come up before dawn for the 夔门日出, the “sunrise over Kuimen,” the single most photographed view in the county.
Reaching it is part of the pleasure. A road climbs the mountain from the river plain, and from the parking area a boardwalk and stone stairway lead out along the ridge to the terrace, an easy walk that still feels like an ascent because the ground falls away on both sides. The air is cooler and thinner than down at the water, and the whole Three Gorges region — the mountains of Wushan and Wuxi on the horizon — is laid out as one sweep. Bring a jacket even in summer; at this height the wind off the gorge is cold at dawn and dusk.
If Baidi City is the Three Gorges in memory, the Summit is the Three Gorges in space — the place that lets you see the whole thing at once. Come for the sunrise if you can bear the early climb, linger for the way the light moves down the river, and you will understand why Fengjie, which guards the gate below, chose this high terrace as its lookout.
Words and Names
三峡之巅 Sānxiá Zhīdiān — the Summit of the Three Gorges, the highest viewpoint over the gorges 赤甲山 Chìjiǎ Shān — Chijia Mountain, the red-cliffed peak on which the summit viewpoint sits 夔门 Kuímén — Kuimen, the gorge gate directly below the summit 夔门日出 Kuímén rìchū — the “sunrise over Kuimen,” the summit’s celebrated dawn view 云海 yúnhǎi — sea of clouds, the cloud tide that fills the gorge below the terrace at dawn 长江 Chángjiāng — the Yangtze, whose bright course threads the gorges seen from the summit