The Silk Road is often imagined as a line across a desert, but in places it was a road cut into rock. The Xiaohan ancient road runs through the mountains of Henan province, linking Luoyang, the Han and Tang capital, with the west through the narrow pass at Hangu. The Shihao section is a stretch of the road that survives in the loess hills, with ruts cut into the stone by wheels. UNESCO listed it as part of the Silk Roads network in 2014.
The road was used from the Han dynasty onwards, more than two thousand years ago, and it was the main route between the central plain and Chang'an, now Xi'an. Carts, mules and soldiers climbed this pass for centuries. The ruts in the stone, worn deep by wheels, show how heavy the traffic was. The terrain is steep and broken, with narrow valleys and yellow cliffs of windblown silt, and it can be hard to imagine a road through it. Yet people kept using it, because there was no easy alternative.
The landscape is the loess plateau, a land of fine yellow soil that the wind carried from the deserts in the northwest over millions of years. It erodes into deep gullies and terraces, and farmers have carved cave houses into the cliffs. Fields of wheat and corn cling to the slopes, and in spring the orchards bloom. The roads wind through the gullies, and the weather can be dry and dusty or wet and slippery.
There is no sizeable town near the site, and Yima, thirty-four kilometres away, is the nearest place of any size, with about eighty thousand people. Plan fuel and food accordingly. In China, riding a foreign motorcycle is generally not allowed without local registration, so check before you plan a trip. If you come on foot or by car, wear sturdy shoes, because the ground is rough, and bring water. In autumn the hills turn gold, and the evening light on the loess cliffs is warm.