Barsi Snow Mountain Viewing Area 巴尔斯雪山开放观景区

About Barsi Snow Mountain Viewing Area

The name is Yugur for 'tall, majestic, sacred', and the county government calls the 5,118 m main peak a sacred mountain for the Yugur people, who live at its foot. Six snow mountains are spread east to west across the area, which the county page describes as made up mainly of snow mountains, glacier relics, rivers, lakes and alpine grassland. The county page measures it 100 km from Zhangye city and 28 km from the Sunan county seat, with the Gansu Daily feature giving 30 km for the county seat; both figures are reported here rather than one being chosen. The county page also gives distances from National Highway 312, the Lianhuo expressway and the Gaotai high-speed rail station, and from the neighbouring Qicai Danxia, Binggou Danxia and Kangle grassland areas.

The mountain came to wider notice through climbing and survey work. The Gansu Daily feature records that the climber Chang Xiaoping reached the summit of the main peak in May 2013 after three days and nights, and that in mid-June 2013 a survey team formed jointly by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Lanzhou branch and the Zhangye municipal government examined the glaciers above Xichahe village and found one at Bailang River, west of the peak, which the feature calls the glacier closest to a city. The newly found glacier was unnamed at the time and was entered provisionally in the Chinese Academy of Sciences' China glacier inventory as 'Bailang River Glacier No. 21'.

The feature describes the approach: from Xichahe village at 2,500 m, a drive up to a viewing platform at 3,950 m, then a wooden boardwalk upward with alpine meadow on both sides and year-round snow on the slopes, the 5,118 m main peak standing on the skyline. It describes the glacier itself as mostly transparent ice, brilliant in sunlight, and quotes researchers who single out the area's firn basins, ice-melt scenery, jagged horned peaks and knife-edge ridges, and a moraine lake that mirrors the sky and is known locally as 天涝池. The county page adds that CCTV's 远方的家 filmed there in 2012 and 黄金线路 in 2015.

What to look for

• The main peak, Barsi, at 5,118 m, which the county page calls a sacred mountain for the Yugur people
• The viewing platform at 3,950 m, which the Gansu Daily feature reaches by vehicle from Xichahe village at 2,500 m
• The wooden boardwalk (木栈道) climbing from the platform, with alpine meadow on both sides and year-round snow on the slopes
• The glacier, which the feature describes as mostly transparent ice and as filling the valley when seen from above
• The moraine lake known locally as 天涝池, which the researchers quoted in the feature say mirrors the blue sky

Location & getting there

Getting to Barsi Snow Mountain Viewing Area

Check weather, trail access and the last return service. A mountain or forest area is not one entrance, and a map’s central pin may be far from the trailhead.

• Search for 巴尔斯雪山开放观景区 with 张掖市 and 肃南裕固族自治县.