The Medog highway was opened 80 kilometers away from Medog at 11 a.m. on Oct. 31，wrapping up China's last county road project.

Medog, located in southwestern Tibet's Nyingchi Prefecture is surrounded by Mount Himalayas and the Galung La Mountain in the west, north and east, and bordered with India in the south. Dubbed as the “lonely island on the plateau”, Medog used to be the only county in China inaccessible by roads, which had hampered its economic and social development. Opening up a road had been a dream of the people in Medog.

Since 1960s the Chinese central government has made unremitting efforts to build up a highway but failed for five times in the five previous attempts due to the harsh natural conditions and frequent natural disasters. In September 2008, the project of a 117-kilometer-long highway from Zhamog Township, seat of the Nyingchi Prefecture to Medog was formally approved with the investment of 950 million yuan (about 152 US dollars). Then the local government of the Tibet Autonomous Region put the project on the top agenda and assigned the mission of conquering the hardest part of the project — opening up the 3,360-meter-long tunnel to No.1 Construction Brigade composed of 300 best engineers and builders.

The Galung La Mountain Tunnel is 3,771 meters above the sea level at the entrance and 3,630 meters at the exit and 821 meters deep, which means there is a head fall of 128 meters. The area is sloppy with big rainfall, frequent quakes and landslides, dubbed as the "encyclopedia of the geological disasters", covering the top six in the world.

As chinanews reported, in 2001 a 26 - member crew of No.2 Institute of China Transportation Bureau traveled on foot to the world biggest canyon – the Yalung Zambo Grand Canyon to do a geological survey, covering 440 kilometers.