Ranch life · 5 October 2026 · 2 min read
The year the mountain closed
A closed mountain, a few stubborn people and a herd of horses: how WINDRIDE began.
Every club has an origin story. Ours is a little bit of a mess.
A trail that had just become famous
Back then Heima was leading groups to Nanjiluo. It’s a beautiful route, and it had just taken off online; more and more people were coming. Heima thought: this time it’s finally going to work.
Then the mountain closed.
No more treks, the bookings were cancelled, and the money already spent was gone. Friends joked that Heima was an outdoor jinx — something always went wrong wherever the group went. Family put it less kindly.
Stubborn people find each other
Those years, all of us were going through something similar. A-Xuan’s restaurant couldn’t hold on and everything was lost. Xinghe had walked away from the stove to lead treks for two years, and ran into the same closures.
People who won’t give up always seem to find each other.
The trails were shut, but horses could still go. Heima’s family had kept horses for generations, so we took the horses and found another way into the mountains. There was no grand plan; we just wanted to stay in the hills doing what we loved.
That closure is what started my caravan life with the brothers. — Xinghe
2022
WINDRIDE was founded in 2022.
It was rough at first: a few horses, a few saddles and a group of young people willing to try anything. We scouted our own trails, fell off, got lost and spent whole nights in the mountain rain. Slowly there were more horses, the trails became familiar, and more friends came to ride.
2026, Xiaozhongdian
Later Drolma Yangdzom, who grew up in Xiaozhongdian, joined us. The landscapes and stories of home, she said, should be shared with the people who travel all this way.
In 2026 we moved the herd to Xiaozhongdian in Shangri-La, at the foot of Bigu Tianchi. There’s open grassland, a lake, a white stupa and snow peaks — and the stables, kitchen and rooms we’ve built here bit by bit.
Looking back, that closed mountain may be the best bad thing that ever happened to us. It took a lot away, and it put us on horseback.
Now it’s your turn to climb up.