In 2021, another highway connecting Medog was fully opened, reducing the time to drive in and out of Medog from 12 hours to about 4 hours. This brought the county into a faster period of rural development.

　　"Medog is often called a museum of geological disasters in China, and that is not an exaggeration," said Cao.

　　Spreading out a road design drawing he had made, Cao pointed out to the reporters the many challenges involved in building roads in Medog: a road stretching between just 30 to 50 kilometers had a vertical elevation difference of nearly 3,000 meters; it passed through snow mountain passes and steep canyon cliffs at altitudes of more than 4,000 meters; along the route, maximum snow accumulation exceeded 12 meters, and snow avalanches affected stretches of road longer than 30 kilometers; some sections received more than 3,000 millimeters of rainfall, with over 200 rainy days a year, while earthquakes, mudslides, landslides and other geological disasters occurred frequently.

　　To cope with these natural barriers, China"s most advanced engineering technologies have also converged in Medog, crossing snow-covered mountains that remain frozen year-round. From double-shield full-face hard rock tunnel boring machines that carve tunnels through high-altitude, high-cold regions, making mountains bow their heads, to steel cable bridges that span deep canyons, linking one cliff wall to another and forcing rivers to yield, and to a series of man-made culverts that combat frequent mudslides - these structures form a "protective shell" that channels flash floods and debris safely away.

　　On the road to Medog, Global Times reporters saw how China"s infrastructure builders displayed boundless wisdom and made tremendous sacrifices in transforming this "isolated plateau island."

　　"Roads to Medog are also like a museum of China"s engineering technology," Cao said.