When Chen Renfan arrived at the forest farm in 1984 at age 22, the mountains were bald. Less than 30 percent of the land had vegetation. The area suffered from severe rocky desertification, meaning nothing would grow there, Chen recalled.

"The mountains had no water, no electricity, no roads," Chen said.

The first group of forest rangers, all in their 20s, built shelters from tree branches and grass mats. They brought food from home, and later learned to farm small plots just to eat.

Of the more than 100 young people who initially came, only about half stayed.

The ones who remained faced the problem of how to plant trees on a rocky mountain.

Chen Renfan and his colleagues hammered holes into stone and carried soil up the mountain in buckets to fill them. They carried water from below to irrigate the seedlings. To keep young trees from being washed away during rain, they used rocks to build small barriers around each root.

It was the kind of labor that wears out not just shoes but people as well. Over the years, Chen Renfan went through more than 300 pairs of canvas shoes and wore out 34 pieces of clothing. He walked over 50,000 kilometers on patrols.

The terrain is rugged, and the farm's six work areas are far apart. Detours between mountains can span dozens of kilometers. To make it efficient, the team uses boats along the reservoir's shore to reach the mountains.

Chen Renfan said: "The mountains lacked established paths and were filled with rocks. After the rain, the ground became slippery and muddy, making it easy to trip and fall. Injuries and broken bones were quite common."