Essay about staying overnight in Heixiong Valley

When I heard the word "Black Bear Ditch" for the first time, my heart was always beating. Are there any black bears? What if we stay there at night and get licked by a black bear? In this way, my brother pulled me into the car in confusion, and we started our overnight trip to Heixiong Valley to pick mushrooms.

"Black Bear Gorge" is located in Baluntai, Hejing County, Xinjiang, on the way to the back gorge of Urumqi City. There is a Black Bear Gorge Wildlife Conservation Station. In this large, endless ravine, it is said that there were once black bears. Haunted, this place is called "Black Bear Ditch".

This place is surrounded by mountains, and Tianshan Ranch is among them. It is an alpine pasture with a very high altitude. Every year, a large number of herdsmen catch up with their cattle and sheep and set up yurts to graze here. Every summer, from July to August, there are abundant aquatic plants, and wild mushrooms and alpine snow lotus spring up in clusters like bamboo shoots after a rain, attracting a large number of tourists for sightseeing and mushroom picking.

The car bumped along the mountain road in the back gorge. The large trucks pulling steel made the road bumpy. Some puddles punctured the mud everywhere from time to time. The small car soon became With a big painted face. The centuries-old large elm trees on the roadside were covered with thick dust and breathing hard. The Kaidu River splits the mountains, and the water hits the rocks with a deafening roar. After more than 4 hours of shaky and confused bumps, we arrived at Black Bear Valley. Since our friend arrived first, our car was placed side by side with his car on the flat and open grassland by the river.

As soon as we heard that they had picked up a lot of mushrooms, we didn’t even bother to rest, so we eagerly watched what the mushrooms here looked like. It turns out that the mushrooms in Heixionggou are also a kind of straw mushroom. They are white in color, have very hard flesh, and feel smooth, like white eggs. Following the direction they directed, we ran onto the grassy beach and started picking mushrooms.

Since it didn’t rain on the meadow when we arrived, the number of mushrooms was not large. In addition, there was a group of “professional killers” who picked mushrooms. They stayed in a small hotel nearby and it was very early in the morning. They came here and left only after the sun went down in the evening, so "there weren't many fish that slipped through the net" in the places they passed. We searched carefully among the butter grass, never missing the white things in front of us. "Oh! I found one." My brother came over and saw that it was a "horse dung bag." The white balls were as big as a fist and were quite hard, so I pulled it out and threw it far away. After a while, poisonous mushrooms and dog urine moss were everywhere, but there was no big white mushroom that we needed. Just when we were about to lose confidence, my brother discovered the mushroom circle. It turns out that the mushrooms here grow very regularly, growing in a semicircular circle. 5-6 white mushrooms bloom like beautiful flowers on the green grass. I quickly picked up my phone and took a photo of this most exciting moment. When we put the white mushrooms we picked in the bag, we felt very excited and would open them and touch them from time to time.

In this way, we climbed more mountains and collected a lot of mushrooms, including diced mushrooms and flower straw mushrooms, which filled our bags. The climate in the mountains changes really fast. After a while, the wind started blowing, and the raindrops hit our faces. The grass soon became slippery, we all fell down, and the mushrooms in the bag were smashed.

By the time we returned to the campsite, they had already set up tents, set up stoves with big rocks, and used dried cow dung to make fire for cooking. There is no firewood here, so we can only get firewood locally and burn cow dung like the herdsmen here. The fire burned bigger and bigger, and our bodies suddenly became much warmer.

The night in the mountains comes so quickly, and the sun sets soon. Not far from us, several young men and women from the Korla outdoor tour group were having a great time drinking and singing around the campfire. We also started eating naan bread soaked in fish soup. Everyone shared food together and imagined future gatherings. The red bonfire reflected our happy smiling faces. We were like old friends we had known each other for a long time, toasting frequently and sharing the rare night on the grassland together. I don't know how to drink, so in order to resist the severe cold and in the enthusiasm of my companions, I drank a large teacup of white wine. In my dizzy state, I forgot that this was a black bear ditch, let alone that there were black bears visiting at night.

The cold wind blew outside the tent, and the roar of the river was even stronger. My brother was so drunk that he started snoring after a while. This was my first time camping in the wild, and I was always uneasy and unable to sleep. I stayed like this in a daze until midnight, when I heard the footsteps of animals and the chewing of food coming from outside the tent. There were also several times when we felt animals breathing outside the tent, too close to us, as if they were looking for food. Suddenly my hair stood on end and I woke up from the wine. He kept shaking his brother and calling him softly. He, an alcoholic, slept soundly and was completely unaware of everything happening outside.

Isn’t it really a black bear? It won't hurt anyone! I opened my eyes wide, held my breath, and grabbed the knife next to me. Just wait. After half an hour everything returned to calm. In the dark night, the rumbling river water accompanied me through the muddy night.

I got up early the next morning and asked my friends from the Korla travel agency. They told me with a smile, "There are many wild animals here. Last night, marmots and wild dogs came here looking for food. There were none." Black bears, they are used to coming here often." One night, I could finally let go of my worries. They invited us to join the outdoor trip, camp in more places, and see the beautiful rivers and mountains of Xinjiang.

The snow-capped mountains in the distance are clearly visible, and the water in the river is frozen. This is the climate in the mountains, which makes people nostalgic and uneasy. The dangerous experience of picking mushrooms is a memory I will never forget.

The sun is rising in the distance, and the dewdrops on the water plants reveal crystal light. The blue sky, white clouds, and green grass became interesting accordingly, and the white mushrooms on the grass showed their white smiling faces. We climbed up to higher grass and started a new day of mushroom picking.