Tuiwa — A Village at 5,070 Metres

Tuiwa sits at around 5,070 metres on the shore of Puma Yumco, a lake in Nagarze county in southern Tibet. It’s among the highest permanently inhabited settlements anywhere — higher than Everest base camp on the Nepali side, and high enough that most visitors arrive with a headache and stay quiet for the first hour.

People live here year-round. That’s the fact worth sitting with.

What life at 5,000 metres requires

Almost nothing grows. Barley struggles above about 4,500 m, so the economy is livestock — sheep, goats and yak, grazed on the sparse grass around the lake. Fuel is dried dung. Houses are stone and packed earth with tiny windows, built low against wind that never really stops.

The physiology is a genuine adaptation. Tibetan highlanders carry gene variants — including in the EPAS1 pathway, inherited in part from archaic humans — that let them function at altitudes where most people’s blood thickens dangerously. Residents here work all day at an oxygen pressure around half of sea level.

The lake crossing

The thing Tuiwa is genuinely known for happens in winter.

Puma Yumco freezes, and once the ice is thick enough the herders walk their flocks across the lake to an island where grass has been left ungrazed all year. Hundreds of sheep are driven over the ice in a line, with men testing the surface ahead. They stay on the island for weeks and are walked back before the thaw.

It is a completely rational solution to a shortage of winter grazing, and it looks like something from another century. The timing depends on the ice, which means late winter, and it isn’t a scheduled event you can book.

Visiting

Be realistic about what’s here: a small village, a very large lake, mountains, and no infrastructure. The reason to come is to see how people live at this altitude, and the correct approach is to be a quiet, respectful and generous guest rather than a spectator.

• Ask before photographing anyone or their home. Always.
• Bring something useful if a household hosts you — tea, sugar, cooking oil, batteries.
• Don’t arrange the sheep crossing as a spectacle. If it’s happening, watch from a distance.

Practical notes

Getting there: Nagarze county, Shannan prefecture, reachable from the Lhasa–Yamdrok Lake road with a long detour on rough track. A driver who has been before is essential.

Permits: Tibet Travel Permit plus additional permits for this area, arranged by a licensed agency. See restricted areas.

Altitude — read this properly. 5,070 m is high enough to be dangerous to the unacclimatised. Spend several days in Lhasa at 3,656 m, then a night at intermediate altitude, and do not sleep at Tuiwa on your first trip above 4,500 m. Descend immediately if symptoms escalate. There is no medical facility here.

When: the lake freezes in winter and the road is at its worst then. May to October is easier travelling; late winter is when the crossing happens. You will probably have to choose.