The valley rivers · 76 – 500 m
The Honghe and Lancang lowlands — the tea south's elephant country and the terraces' valley floors. No altitude effect; heat is the consideration.
Destinations / Yunnan / Altitude profile
The altitude profile.
Yunnan is a staircase of four vertical kilometres. Here is every step that matters — where the journeys sleep, what each night costs, and how the acclimatisation lines are built.
Explore the guide ↓All of Yunnan · the vertical map
- The range
- 76 m – 6,740 m
- The steps
- 1,890 → 2,400 → 3,300 m
- The rule
- One step per day
- The exceptions
- Haba · Yubeng
The steps that matter.
From the valley rivers to the plateau, with the journeys that sleep at each.
The central plateau · 1,890 m
The gateway step — a gentle warm-up night that most international arrivals sleep at without noticing.
The lake & old towns · 1,970 – 2,400 m
The comfortable middle — most of the province's classic journeys live here, and the two nights make the natural acclimatisation pair.
The gorge country · 1,800 – 2,600 m
The high trail's walking band and the Haba base village — real climbing country, gentle altitude.
The plateau · 3,300 – 3,700 m
The Tibetan northwest — first-day-gentle rules apply, and the Yubeng pass tops the band at 3,700 m.
The summits · 5,396 m
The province's walkable summit — a guided journey with its own rotation, and the honest difficulty note on its page.
Acclimatisation, in practice.
How the lines are built.
One step per day
Each sleeping altitude should rise by no more than one big step (~800–900 m) per night through the first plateau week — the overland line obeys this by design.
Climb high, sleep low
Where the itinerary can, the walking days climb above the sleeping altitude and descend to sleep — the gorge-to-Shangri-La line is the classic example.
Honest self-reporting
Headache, poor sleep, no appetite at altitude are signals — guides carry the protocol, and the itineraries hold rest days that can be used without wrecking the line.
Descend to fix
The staircase's advantage: the cure for a bad plateau night is a valley night, and the journey can always walk back down.