Six years ago the road ended in Pipa.
No, that's not right. 

Six years ago, the paving ended in Pipa. 

The "road" continued all the way to the border with Sichuan. It was, and remains, and probably will forever remain, the only time I've been on an honest-to-goodness unpaved Provincial Road in China. By now, even in the really poor provinces, almost all of the X (County) roads have been paved, most of the Y (Rural) roads have been paved, and they are working on paving roads that don't even get a number or letter designator. Since most of my trips involve going from A to B to C to D, pretty much the only time I ride dirt now is when there's ongoing construction.

When I talked to the construction workers back in 2012 they all just assumed that there had been a road and that they had destroyed it with their giant dump trucks full of gravel and their various bits of heavy machinery. But I didn't just talk to the construction workers. I also talked to the locals.
The road had never been paved.

You'd think the fact that some of the locals still had donkeys handy which could then be pressed into service carrying loads up to some of the steeper and more remote bits of expressway construction would have led some of the more permanent construction workers to realize what sort of an area they were in but, even in 2012, the idea that a Provincial Road had never been paved was just so completely alien that it had to be an impossibility.

Since I was here last there have been a lot of changes but they are more subtle than you might expect. The older generation still carry just about everything in baskets on their backs. Everyone between the ages of 19 and 28 are still working in the cities. There are more cars and fewer trucks. Side roads up to villages have been paved. People are moving around more. It's still a poor backwater, however. In fact, given that people now have the option to easily go other places, I'd actually say that in some ways, things have taken a step or two backwards.

For example, I haven't seen a single half decent looking restaurant since I turned uphill two days ago. No reason to open one or to stay open when the customer base can just hop on the expressway and drive to the city. Almost all of the hanging bridges have been removed and replaced with fixed-in-place bridges or fords—many of which have since been washed out. 

Given the number of minor (and not so minor) landslides and undercuts that I see throughout the course of the day, I think I know why it took the government so long to get around to paving back here. It's just not good land for fixed permanent structures. 

The expressway doesn't seem to have suffered any but it's a massively over engineered combination of tunnels (more than 30 just in this stretch) and viaducts and I see quite a number of work crews out on doing maintenance or integrity checks.

All day I mostly go downhill following the windy bendy twisty path of the river through the gorge. Sometimes I climb up some bluffs but then I always whizz back down the other side and descend even farther than I climbed.

If today were sunny and blue the way it was when I was in the gorges before Wudu, this whole area would be stunningly beautiful. Instead, it's cold and gray. So cold, in fact, that for the first few hours of the morning the mountains above me are still frost topped. Even with lots of layers and glove liners and warm thermal tights. I do not like cold and gray. Cold and gray and me are not a good mix. I want the sun to come

Much to my great surprise, I'm actually able to find a significant number of the places I photographed six years ago. Few of them were actually anything extra special interesting at the time. Just something that caught my fancy. Really what only makes the photos of them interesting now is the difference before and after.

I get into Yaodu with perhaps an hour of sunlight left to me. The town, which wasn't super lively six years ago, is even less lively now. All the traffic has been stolen by the expressway and it's the wrong season for tourism.

The hundred year old home turned guesthouse that I stayed in is no longer in business as a guesthouse but their neighbor three doors down in the only other hundred year old home on the main street is still running a guesthouse. They're set up with eight or ten proper hotel rooms as well as six additional rooms with a shared bathroom but I'm one of only two people spending the night.