Maling Ancient Path, Tonglu Valley Section

石舍 is the upstream answer to a question most visitors never ask: what did a valley keep when the road went round it? Its Ming and Qing houses are a protected group, listed by the province in 2017, more than 3,000 square metres of timber behind whitewash, and the halls carry names rather than numbers: 存仁堂, 精义堂, 厚载堂, 敬义堂. A camphor at the village edge is given about twelve centuries, and an art gallery has made the place a sketching base for the China Academy of Art. Start at the bus stop and you add a few hundred metres of lane, because the walked line published here begins on the climbing road above the houses rather than at anyone's door.

This stretch decides what the walk is. The lane climbs out of the valley on a steady grade, reaches high ground at about 1.4 km, runs a plateau for a kilometre, and then drops: forty-five metres over the next half kilometre, the steepest sustained thing on the route, and it is coming down. That half kilometre takes a fit walker about eight minutes. Below it the creek appears at 128 m with 茆坪's covered bridge on the far side. There is no view from the saddle and no marker on it. The name promises a ridge crossing; this is a valley lane with one short hill in it.

Caution: The descent is stone, often mossy, and shaded enough to stay wet after rain. It is also the one part of this walk where a fall would matter.

茆坪 is why the path exists. A local benefactor named 胡仲仁 put up the money and six years of labour to pave this valley with river cobble in the fourteenth century, and the village he left is listed twice over: a China Historic and Cultural Village since 2019, a Traditional Village since 2014. Roughly seven in ten households carry the 胡 surname. The ancestral hall, raised in 1772 and covering more than 1,800 square metres, shows as under renovation in the map listings; 文安楼, built between 1922 and 1925, is the house people stop at. Three-hundred-year trees, a covered bridge at the lower end and a fifteen-yuan noodle bowl are the rest of the pitch.

Photo suggestion: The bridge at the village's lower end works best in the morning, with the sun still on the far hill rather than in the frame.

From 茆坪 to 蟹坑口 the walk becomes the thing it is listed for: a cobblebed and flagstone lane averaging about 1.2 m wide, crossing the creek on stepping stones, a suspension bridge and a second covered bridge, and meeting the provincial road more than once where the valley narrows. 百步街 is the famous name here, and the profile is worth knowing before you arrive: across the kilometre each side of the lane the valley gives up two metres, so whatever the stone does, this is not the climb the guidebooks promise. The named 马岭古道 point sits where the lane meets the road, and 蟹坑口 is where the cliff squeezes the path to its narrowest.

Caution: Some plank sections have rotted through, with a channel nearly two metres deep under them, and the road crossings come around bends.

Below 蟹坑口 the valley opens and the path stops pretending to be remote. 芦茨 claims the Tang poet 方干 as its own and repeats a story about eighteen examination successes from one settlement, and since September 2012 it has been the core of the first rural slow-life experience zone the provincial government approved, 62 square kilometres that also hold 白云源 and the boat-only 严子陵钓台. A provincial 3A scenic village label followed in 2018 and a national forest village one in 2019, which in practice means tea rooms, an electric-boat pontoon and a good deal of weekend traffic. The 金富柴火饭店 that the walk's own GPS file names as its finish is here, and so is the tourism station.

The station and the village committee office arrive at about 10 km, with toilets, seating and the shuttle that may or may not be running. The recorded line carries on another half kilometre to where the creek gives up its name to the Fuchun River, which is the right place to decide the afternoon. If the bus is on your side, take it back up the valley to 石舍 for your car or straight on to 桐庐站. If it is not, call a taxi and watch the river road on the way out, because that is the only part of Tonglu you will see without walking.