G318 Litang Plateau — Maoya River Valley Dispersed Camp

Pull off the G318 east of Litang town onto the open grassland benches above the Maoya River valley and you’ve got one of the most cinematic dispersed pitches on the entire Sichuan-Tibet Highway. Elevation sits somewhere around 13,000 ft, so acclimatization matters before you sleep here. The ground is firm-packed grass and gravel — flat enough for most rigs. No facilities, no signage, no fee. Yak herds move through regularly. Keep your food secured. Cell signal is effectively zero.

Access is directly off the G318 tarmac — no secondary track required. Season runs June through September; outside that window snow can arrive without warning and the plateau turns dangerous. Permit situation for overlanders on G318 in this stretch requires a Tibet Travel Permit and an Alien Travel Permit — sort those in Chengdu before departure or you won’t make it past checkpoints. No fires; wind and altitude make open fires impractical anyway.

Big sky Tibetan plateau, 13,000 ft, zero crowds.