They already have sluicing there. Make no mistake, these plans are for proper dams.

Nice bit of writing but a bit light on detail. I've ridden here on and off for years thanks to the Xiong Brothers so I should point out there are many routes up and down this mountain, almost all of them only suitable for mountain bikes.

The easiest and best climb is the one mentioned, basically as far north as you can go along the eastern edge of the mountain, past the cigarette factory, through a village and some older factories, and then turn left when you absolutely run out of trail. You wind up snaking up the north-eastern edge of the mountain. Traffic here can be a little heavy at times but there are some good spots to stop for views, and the killer feature is a restaurant at the top. It is a reasonable idea to eat or refill your water here before continuing, particularly if you want to summit or have people with you in less than stellar shape.

Opposite the restaurant is a village. Normally you just go up through this village, continue along the road, and hit another village. The aforementioned "not welcome" occurs at this point during part of the year. You can work around this issue by dragging your bike through fields some distance to the west.

In any event, passing the final village there are a few more fields before the mountain trails begin. There are two main trails in this northern portion, the westerly (more technical to begin with, better connected and the normal choice) and the easterly (less well trodden, less interesting, but offering a different view).

Both converge some distance to the south, as the dominant topography changes from open landscape to planted Australian wattle forests with their distinctive yellow flowers. A spot of denser forest then appears, which can be fun to tear through but has some very difficult little rocky corners... so watch out!

A road now bisects the mountain on the east/west axis. If you're wounded or a bike has given up you can choose to descent via a small road or a small trail, the latter being rather short and taking you down above a minor temple on the eastern slope. Note that proceeding further south along the mountain from that point will enter the military area (ie. don't).

Normally though, you head west a little then turn left (south) down a major fire trail which will be self-evident (if you continue you'll reach a place where you can also emerge if you've taken the eastern trail and stuck with it instead of going through the forest).

From here on, there's a reasonable period of wide road. Left (west) of this area, down through the sparsely-planed wattle forest, is an area of graves, some of which can be ridden. Locals sometimes collect undergrowth here. Normally though, you continue to a junction, where there is an option to drop down the the right (west-nor-west) on a major vehicular access fire trail. That descent isn't very exciting and leaves you essentially miles from anywhere, but does provide an alternate route up if you are lucky enough to live in the north-west of Kunming.

Continuing south instead, after a time you reach a small covered building on the right and a paved road descending left, U-turning and climbing right. Descending here is mainly boring and will take you out fairly close to town, through much roadwork of late. This is the main route by which new car drivers drag their posses up the mountain, which never used to be possible, but is a development that the government is apparently trying to facilitate. Climbing to the right, continue just a little and you will see the bare peak of Changchongshan. To climb it, turn left after descending slightly at the carpark. With a couple of steps near the end excepted, you can ride all the way to the summit, which offers a killer view and some serious high-altitude exercise!

If you instead continue directly straight south at the carpark, you reach a sort of wetland/depression area which seems far too convenient and conspicuous to be natural and might just have an ugly history. A path through there is not really accessible by MTB, but you can see the southern (far) side, where it is possible to connect from the summit to the trail you should probably take instead, to the west (ie. left) from the carpark. This trail is quite overgrown but is one of the best parts of the mountain. If you continue to the wider portion, when you climb the first small hill turn left (east) to reach some steps that allow you to access the summit peak (this is a good alternative for descending from the summit if you are cold, thirsty, hungry or short of time, since you can cut out some of the overgrown trail).

Following the trail south will descend along a fairly rocky and steep section to the westerly gateway of the military area, which is really not a hassle (I have never heard of people having problems here when descending) and lets you out in farmlands relatively close to town, behind the Yangxianpo / Huangtupo / Xuefulu area.

Does Yunnan really need more modern Chinese corruption-money-millionaire visions of grand resorts? I have just been down at Chengjiang area and Fuxian lake is being destroyed by them as well. To say nothing of the land-hungry golf courses.

The government should halt land theft. This affects all of Kunming who will suffer increased pollution and poor health since fresh food will need to be transported from further afield, concrete runoff from more construction will further pollute Dianchi Lake, and the historical topography of the Dian kingdom becomes invisible to a cloud of northern Chinese skyscraper bling bullshit.

You should see how badly they've fucked up Jinghong, I'm surprised there haven't been riots or organized armed incursions from the Shan states.

Cool. Had heard great things about this area and was planning to visit. Definitely going now.

I can also recommend further south from that area around Jingdong/Jinggu .. putting in some time in that area will reveal some well preserved wooden and stone Dai Buddhist temples that are far older, grander-scale and more interesting than those easily found in Xishuangbanna (now destroyed with rubber-money). Particularly the valley west of Jinggu.

Also on the cards for Dali-region is Jizushan, or Chicken's foot mountain, a mountain that was famously praised in the Ming dynasty but rarely receives much attention today. That's north-east of Erhai.

Nice area. I've only been up there by public bus and motorbike, about four years back, but also had a great time.

Really nice map there ... how'd you make the base-layer (ie. not the I-guess-it's-a-GPS red line?)