Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear all,
Once again, we can welcome some more like-minded people to our small community. A big thank you to everyone who subscribed! 😊
Our video “Unseen Die Shan” is the last one from the beautiful Die Mountains in southern Gansu.
So, what came next?
I had prepared roadmaps for two possible routes:
1. Heading west to Qinghai
Proceed to Yushu on the Qinghai Plateau and try to follow the Tongtian River — the headstream of the Yangtze — as far as possible towards its source. Then return along the Jinsha River, continuing through Sichuan towards Shanghai.
2. Crossing the Min Mountains
Cross the Min Mountains in northern Sichuan, explore the famous Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong, and hopefully get there before the summer tourist season really gets going.
Unfortunately, both options were thwarted by an early monsoon season, which hit both regions hard.
To escape the rain, we had to turn northwest. Still within reach were Qinghai Lake, the Qilian Mountains and the Zhangye Danxia formations.
So, I changed the entire route, and we decided to explore Qinghai and northwestern Gansu.
Exploring Qinghai
Qinghai turned out to be rather disappointing, apart from Xining, which became our base for two round trips:
1. Qinghai Lake and Chaka Lake
We crossed the Kunlun Mountains in terrible weather. A pretty disappointing day — and 800 km that felt largely wasted! 😕
2. Xining – Zhangye – Qilian – Xining
This route took us across the Qilian Mountains via the famous Eboiling Pass.
The highlights were the spectacular Danxia formations near Zhangye and the G213 through the Qilian Mountains — often referred to as “Snow Leopard Territory.”
Turning north
Back in Xining, the weather to the south had become even worse. So we decided to head north, towards Ningxia.
We even crossed into Inner Mongolia and got a brief look at the Gobi Desert.
In Ningxia, we explored a section of the Yellow River — including the area where its waters take on their familiar yellow-brown colour.
From there, we made a big northern loop back home, travelling across the Loess Plateau through Shaanxi and Shanxi, then continuing east through Anhui and Jiangsu to Shanghai.
There’s still a lot to come in this series!
Thanks so much for watching and subscribing. I hope you’ll stay with us for the next episodes.
Have a wonderful day,
Eberhard

5 days ago | [YT] | 1

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear All,
First,, I’m very happy to welcome some new friends to Driven by Nature — and thank you very much for subscribing! 😊
With the end of Episode 4, we have now reached the base of our Die Shan Mountains adventures
Probably most of you have never heard of this mountain range in the south-eastern part of Gansu Province.
Even the name is surprisingly unclear. Some sources describe it as part of the Western Qinling Mountains, others as an eastern extension of the Qilian Mountains or as part of the Min Mountains. Some even call it the Zagha Mountains, after the famous tourist destination Zaghana.
But none of these descriptions quite fits what we found.
The Die Shan Mountains (迭山) form a distinctive mountain range extending roughly 120 km from east to west and about 65 km from north to south. The Tao River borders the range to the north, the Min River to the east and the Bailong River to the south. Numerous peaks rise above 4,500 m.
As mystic as the range is the highest Peak
3 years ago I found “Cuo Daixi” , at around 4,920 m, at the eastern end of the range.Unfortunately this seems a translation area
Newer information list Cuomei Peak (措美峰), also identified in Chinese sources as Zha Yikega (扎伊克嘎), at 4,920 m.as highest peak of the range
And that is the mysterious mountain we want to find on Day 2.
But before we search we have to drive on the famous Locke Road, often described as one of China's most beautiful 100 km mountain roads, climbing to around 4,000 m.from Jone to Tewo county
Probably in 2 parts as too long for 1 Episode
EP 5 – Locke road -The wild Jone part on dirt roads
EP 6 - The beautifull but very touristic overkill on the Tewo side with Zaghana as center
and then follows the
EP 7 - The search for the mystic mountain in unknown remote area.
Thanks for watching and with best regards
Eberhard

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear friends,
We're back from our month-long road trip across northwestern China with almost 3 TB of footage! Over the coming weeks, I'll be editing and publishing the journey as a series throughout July and August.
We returned just in time. Summer holidays have begun in China, meaning crowded highways, busy tourist attractions and millions of holiday drivers. At the same time, the monsoon and typhoon season has arrived, bringing heavy rain, floods, landslides and rockfalls to many mountain regions.
So, for now, the best place to be is a cool office, sorting through all those memories. 😊
When I checked the channel after returning home, I was delighted to see that our small community has grown. A warm welcome to everyone who subscribed during the trip, and thank you for joining us!
The new series follows an 8,000 km Road Trip Across China, taking us through 11 provinces and 6 remarkable mountain ranges.
Provinces
Shanghai • Jiangsu • Anhui • Henan • Shaanxi • Gansu • Sichuan • Qinghai • Ningxia • Inner Mongolia • Shanxi
Mountain Ranges
Qinling • Minshan • Dieshan • Qilian • Kunlun • Tieshan
A few things this journey confirmed once again:
• China is incredibly beautiful and amazingly diverse.
• We experienced outstanding hospitality everywhere we travelled.
• The roads and infrastructure are excellent, even in remote regions.
• Hotels offer remarkable value, and finding accommodation each day was rarely a problem.
• Local food can be an adventure—but if needed, you'll still find a KFC or Starbucks surprisingly often. 😊
Like every real road trip, our journey didn't always go according to plan. The weather decided where we could go. Every evening we checked the forecast and adjusted our route accordingly.
Not every day was spectacular, and I won't hide the quieter parts of the journey. Episode 1, published today, begins with almost 1,000 km ( shortened heavily!) across the flat plains before reaching the beautiful Qinling Mountains—but that's part of the adventure.
Episode 2 is completely different. It became one of my favourite "bad weather" films and includes several unexpected surprises.
I hope you'll enjoy travelling with us through this new series.
As always, if you'd like to know more about any place or the journey itself, feel free to ask in the comments or send me an email.
Have a wonderful day,
Eberhard

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear All,

It's been a little quiet on the channel recently as I'm currently on an 8,000 km road trip through northwestern China.

First of all, I would like to warmly welcome our new subscribers. I noticed that some new friends joined the channel during the last weeks. Thank you very much for your support and interest in our journeys!

At the moment, we are in Qinghai, waiting for a suitable weather window to cross the Qilian Mountains and continue towards Zhangye. So far, we have been quite lucky with the weather and I have already captured more than 2 TB of footage.

Of course, some of it is highway driving through spectacular mountain landscapes, but we have also discovered some beautiful mountain passes and a few hidden roads far away from the main tourist routes.

We expect to be back home at the beginning of July. After that, I will start uploading footage from the trip, probably day by day, so you can join us on this journey through some of China's most beautiful mountain regions. Besides the highlights, I'll also share some shorter impressions from the long drives that connect these remote places.

As a small preview, I've attached some pictures from the trip.

Thank you again for your support, and I look forward to sharing the adventure with you soon!

Best regards,

Eberhard

3 months ago | [YT] | 1

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear All,
Over the last four months, we captured some beautiful road trips in the mountains of Zhejiang. I hope you enjoyed the footage. More importantly, our small channel welcomed around 30 new friends during this time.
Thank you all very much for your subscriptions, support, comments, and likes.
For us, it is now time to move north. South of the Yangtze River, the rainy season is beginning. Beautiful weather windows become rare, and besides heavy rain and occasional hailstorms, the risk of rockfalls increases dramatically on the small mountain roads I enjoy exploring.
Our plan is to travel from Xi'an into the Qinling Mountains and then continue toward the remote mountain regions farther west. The main objective is a peak called Cuo Daixi (4,950 m).
Cuo Daixi is one of the most beautiful mountains I have ever discovered. It reminds me a little of the Matterhorn, yet it is almost unknown outside the region. I first found it while exploring Google Earth, and this will be my second attempt to see it in reality.
Using tiny mountain roads, we should be able to approach the mountain from the south to an elevation of about 3,300 m. From there, the rest will depend on the drone and, most importantly, the weather. We will need at least four days of clear skies, and at the moment June is not looking very promising.
If we fail again, we will continue farther north, crossing the main range of the Qilian Mountains via Eboliang Pass (around 4,000 m) and heading toward Zhangye. There, I hope to capture footage of the colorful Danxia landscape. As always, I have already discovered a few promising small roads away from the main tourist routes.
I hope to share photos and updates through Community Posts during the trip and keep you informed about our progress. Regular video uploads will resume in July.
Thank you again for your support, and I look forward to sharing the next adventure with you.
Best regards,
Eberhard

PS our last upload of the Zhejiang Spring series

3 months ago | [YT] | 0

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear All,
First, welcome and many thanks to our new subscribers!
I’m just uploading the next video of our Zhejiang Spring Series

“Driving a Forbidden Cliff Road Through China's Botanical Mountain Paradise 4K Drive & Drone”

This video is all about the exceptional beautiful vegetation captured by Driving and Drone in 4K
It’s been an exceptional descent from 1750m to 500m through the “Cradle of Ancient Plants.
This ecology has survived since before the Ice Age!
We drove through 11 vegetation zones, I tried to figure them out but failed Found only 8 plus the meadow on top of the Huangmajian captured by Drone .
Hopefully I was right , if something wrong about , please correct me in the comment section
The video will be online om May12th 2PM GMT +8

Hope you’ll enjoy

Best regards
Eberhard

4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 1

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear all,

About one month ago, the channel reached its first birthday.
We’re now more than 100 like-minded people — thank you very much for your support and for subscribing.

March is the perfect time to experience spring in Zhejiang, so we planned a trip to explore mountain roads I had discovered earlier this year.
It took until April to find the right weather window — but it was worth the wait.

The conditions were perfect:
fresh green leaves, bamboo forests changing color, and wild cherry blossoms adding something special to the landscape.

On the first day in the mountains, we covered 175 km in almost 7 hours — an average speed of just 26 km/h.
That already says a lot about the road conditions 🙂

The footage turned out to be excellent:
unmapped roads, tight encounters with oncoming traffic, rockfalls, and stunning nature.

The first video, “Driving a Cliff Road”, is already online.
The most intense one, “NO SPACE”, will be published Monday morning.

More videos will follow — including smaller mountain roads and a drone overflight of the Longquan Gorge.

Thank you again for your support,
and I hope you enjoy the Zhejiang Spring series.

Best regards,
Eberhard

5 months ago | [YT] | 0

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear all,
Imagine driving in China and meeting only two cars in two hours!
That’s when you know you are in one of the remotest valleys that eastern China — despite its dense population — can still offer 😊
The drive through the Yinchuan River Valley was one of the most impressive experiences I’ve had since I started exploring China by car.
The mountains and nature offer pure beauty, and the few villages and settlements along the way are extremely well kept and clean.
At some point I caught myself thinking: no tourists, no littering — just nature and a quiet valley.
But once we crossed the nameless pass below White Crane Peak, we were suddenly back to “civilization.” I skipped that part of the drive and went directly to some drone footage of the Yunhe Rice Terraces and the beautiful panorama of the Yunhe Valley.
Continuing further, everything suddenly felt a bit more like “polished China,” ready for tourism — even topped by a rather ugly watchtower above the rice terraces.
So after a short glimpse of the touristic area, I also skipped the rest of the journey.
I hope you’ll enjoy the pure beauty of the first part of today’s trip as much as I did.
Out of curiosity:
Would you prefer the untouched valley — or the developed tourist area?

6 months ago | [YT] | 0

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear All,

Since last Clip from Xi”Ao Pass some more friends joined our group. Thank you very much for subscribing.

Besides driving and video cutting I spend a lot of time on Google Earth to get ideas for my next trip. Not all roads are displayed in the English- language maps , available in China. Specially the tiny ones, I love so much

For last trip to Zhejiang I found some promising track leading up the farmland hills in the “She Autonomous County” It’s been a fascinating one lane paved road in a very remote and very steep area .
Starting a 400m elevation and ended at around 950m on a road wher oncoming traffic needs carefully manoevering to pass. Fortunately I met only one car  in an hour drive
The hill and the farmland slopes where very steep , I was wondering how the farmers cultivate the fields. The use of machines is virtually impossible.
The landscape was more than impressive with great panoramic views on the mountains opposite the Jingchuan River valley

I hope you’ll enjoy the video as I enjoyed the driving 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2sbf...

7 months ago | [YT] | 1

Eberhard Ritzau Driven by nature

Dear all,
It’s been a while since the last upload — sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned.
Instead of spending last autumn in the Chinese mountains, I unexpectedly ended up in Germany for a rather extensive “full body overhaul”.
Not exactly the adventure I had in mind… but that’s life.
I’m back in China now, and the journey continues.
Thank you very much for staying with me, and a warm welcome to all new subscribers.
Winter in central China is not the most beautiful season. Nature suffers from cold and dry weather, but it recovers quickly once spring arrives.
I used this time to explore some lesser-known mountain regions in Zhejiang Province, south of Shanghai.
Around 70% of Zhejiang is covered by rugged and remote mountains, rising up to nearly 2,000 m. These landscapes were shaped over roughly 120 million years by erosion in a warm, wet, subtropical climate. On top of that, Zhejiang is one of the main landfall areas for typhoons.
At the same time, it’s one of China’s economic powerhouses — the remaining land seems almost entirely filled with cities, industry, and highways.
The advantage: excellent infrastructure and surprisingly easy access even to very remote areas.
Leaving the highways already gives a first impression of the landscape. Once you enter the mountains, it becomes truly overwhelming:
narrow and steep roads, carved into cliffs, surrounded by dense vegetation.
You’ll find new uploads from the Xianxia Mountains and the She Autonomous County on the channel.
Despite the winter vegetation, these roads are already beautiful — and they may give you a preview of what to expect when nature fully explodes there in the coming weeks.

One small note about this drive:
The camera is mounted the camera outside the car. So no conversation from inside disturbes the sound— only natural driving sounds like wind, decent engine noise, and the occasional honking on mountain roads.

I wanted to try this setup and would be happy to hear what you think about it.

7 months ago | [YT] | 0