I don’t use a wide-angle lens very much, but on this day trip I used it almost exclusively; the scenery was just too huge to capture with a normal camera lens.  The trip began with a visit to the first bend in the Yangzi River, pictured here in wide-angle.  Despite being the first major bend, the name is somewhat deceptive; the river begins nearly a thousand miles away in central Tibet, eventually emptying an even further distance away near Shanghai.

This rope-and-board bridge in nearby Shigu crosses over a tributary of the Yangzi.

The minibus trip proceeded up the Yangzi through the Haba Mountains near Jade Snow Mountain, and the landscape became continuingly more dramatic.  Again, this is a very wide-angle shot.

The entrance to Tiger Leaping Gorge, again shot with a wide angle lens.  At this point, the elevation from the river to the nearby peaks approaches 3,000 meters - about two miles.

A massive rockslide and the subsequent wash of debris caused the white coloration on the face of this mountain.  To get a sense of the scale of this shot, you look up at a 45 degree angle to see the mountaintop, and down at a 45 degree angle to see the river.  Those two little lines along the bottom of the mountain are full two-lane roads; the white debris extends nearly a mile along each road.  My neck was sore from looking up so much by the end of this trip.

The Yangzi surges through the gorge.  From river to mountaintop here is about 3,900 meters, and you can see for miles downstream.  This was the furthest point into the gorge that tourists could venture; only serious hikers could proceed from here.  It normally take three days to walk the ten miles through the gorge.