Midui Glacier lies in Bomi county in eastern Tibet, on the road between Nyingchi and the Sichuan border, and it ends at an unusually low altitude - around 2,400 metres at the snout - which means the ice reaches down into a zone that carries trees. The result is a glacier that you approach through forest, with the ice appearing between conifers and rhododendrons rather than against bare rock and scree. Few glaciers in Asia are accessible at that altitude, and the setting is the reason Midui is well known among Chinese travellers.
The walk in
From the road a trail leads up through the village and into the forest, then out onto moraine and gravel before reaching the edge of the ice. The walk takes an hour or two each way depending on how far you go, and it passes a viewpoint above the glacier before descending to a lake at the snout. The glacier itself is a broad, heavily crevassed tongue descending from the massif behind, with two main ice streams and a covering of debris near the terminus. Icefalls at the head of the valley are visible from the upper path.
Nyingchi and eastern Tibet
Midui sits in the part of Tibet that shares its climate with the Sichuan-Tibetan border: wet, forested, deeply cut by rivers, and far more temperate than the plateau around Lhasa. The villages here are Tibetan but the agriculture and timber building differ from the Changtang, and the road east towards Ranwu Lake and the Sichuan border runs through some of the most dramatic gorge scenery in the country. Midui is commonly visited as one stop on the overland route between Lhasa and Chengdu.
Practical notes
Bomi is on the Sichuan-Tibet highway, a long drive from Lhasa or from the Sichuan side, and the road is subject to landslides in the monsoon season. Foreign visitors need a Tibet Travel Permit and an additional permit for travel outside Lhasa, arranged through a licensed agency; the area additionally requires permits for foreign visitors at times, so check current rules. Altitude is much lower than the plateau, which makes the walking easy, but the ground near the ice is loose and unstable. Do not walk on the glacier without a guide and equipment.
