Golok/Golog/Guoluo མགོ་ལོག
Golok Tibetan nomads
Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture/ མགོ་ལོག་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ: is located in Southeastern of Qinghai Province and Eastern edge of Tibetan Plateau. As it is located in the upper reach of Yellow River, also known as the Source of Yelllow river. Golok is one of the biggest Tibetan Population in Qinghai Province, 90% of population are Tibetan and living in a traditional way of nomadic life style with average altitude 4200m/13450ft. . Golok Tibetan Prefecture consists by 6 counties which are Machen, Gade, Mato, Padma, Jigdril and Darlag. The capital city of Golok is Tawu, which is located 450km south of Xining.
Geographically, Golok is embraced by the mountain Banyakala and Holy Amnye Machen Snow Mountain.
Amnye Machen Snow Mountain/ ཨ་མྱེས་རྨ་ཆེན།
(alt 6282m/20603ft) is located 70km in the southwest of Tawu town of Machen county. Amnye Machen is one of the four main holy mountains of Tibet along with Mt.Kailash, Mt. Minyak Gongga and Mt.Karwa Karpo. It attracts Tibetan pilgrims from across eastern and northern Tibet during the summer months. Especially, the year of sheep in Tibetan calendar, nomads people from Amdo flows here with their families
Amnye Machen is one of the four main holy mountains of Tibet along with Kailash, Gongga and Meili Xue. Located in the northern Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Amdo, it rises to 6282m / 20,605 feet. It might be less-known as a holy mountain but it is equally as important to the Tibetan people as the well-known Mt. Kailash and attracts Tibetan pilgrims from all across eastern and northern Tibet during the summer months.
This is an area rich in natural mineral and forest resources and is characterized by vast grasslands covering high mountains and deep valleys. We’ll ride out into this rugged countryside where you often see nomads camping with their herds of yak, horse and sheep and grazing on these grasslands as well as devoted pilgrims on their way to do the 7-10 day holy circumambulation of Amnye Machen.
The Amnye Machen Trek has two options, one is full circumambulation of the mountain which takes 8 days and the other one is 4 days trek in front of the snow mountain. The average trek distance is about 15-16km with 6-7hour per day.
