Dire conditions don't deter resolute soldiers

Climbing 1,377 steep steps — the equivalent of ascending some 70 floors in a standard office building — can exert considerable physical strain on most people.

Add to this biting gusts, thin air at an altitude exceeding 4,000 meters and a steep incline of over 70 degrees, and one can begin to grasp a fraction of the rigorous conditions that the border defense regiment in Bedel, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, deals with on a daily basis.

Their routine patrol entails scaling 1,377 steps to reach China's No 3 boundary marker with Kyrgyzstan in Xinjiang's Wushi county. The stairway is known as tianti in Mandarin, meaning sky ladder.