A fantastic journey!
However, what happened here? Too tight of corner, or was the driver not paying attention?
Maybe both. The road from Taklamakan 1800m to Tula pastures 3200m curved so tightly in some places that the trucks had to back up once or twice. Starting uphill with 14 people inside, 300 m drops all around and the truck jumping off the gear (slipping back 2 meters) was probably the scariest thing I have ever encountered. And I had to take that road four times. It was also eroded away in couple of places so bad that the outside wheels had to go over a void. There was one rickety bridge also, covered with straw, over fairly swift river (all others were forded) which we had to cross, only to see a sign on the other side saying 2 tn…. Not to mention driving across this mountain range with a broken front axle, wheels pointing out about 15 degrees. One tire had lost almost all rubber when we reached Queimo to have the truck welded together, and the parts we had brought from the lame truck up on the plateau at 4300m.
It was also a quite surprise when the full auxiliary tank fell off when going at full speed on a sand flat. It threw the back to the truck up so violently that 2 members hit their heads in the roof and hurt their necks.
I shot video of this with one other member and it was made into a documentary "Into the Forgotten Valley" and show in National Geographic Adventure Channel. I also made my own version for the Finnish TV. We actually were the first people ever to reach the west side of the mountain.
http://ctfilms.com/into-the-forgotten-valley/