Wushaoling Pass Official Viewpoint 乌鞘岭正规开放观景点

About Wushaoling Pass Official Viewpoint

The ridge is known in Tibetan as Haxiang Nie'a, meaning monk's ridge. It lies in the middle of Tianzhu county, about 17 km east to west and 10 km north to south, and its main peak stands at 3,562 m. Its mean annual temperature is -2.2 degrees Celsius, and Wuwei News Network's page describes it as long known for steep, strategically difficult ground. The same page places it in central Gansu at the eastern end of the Qilian range and calls it an important east-west transport corridor.

Both pages describe the ridge in terms of the boundaries it is said to mark, and these are the pages' own statements. Wuwei News Network writes that it is the boundary between the first and second topographic steps of China, that the line dividing the country's monsoon zone from its non-monsoon zone and its internal from its external drainage area passes through it, that the Loess Plateau, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Inner Mongolia Plateau meet here, and that three climatic zones intersect at the ridge. China Gansu Web also places the ridge where the three plateaus meet, quotes the phrase 地扼东西孔道，势控河西咽喉 for its position, and describes it as looking east to Longdong, west to the Hexi corridor, north to the desert and south to the Qilian range.

China Gansu Web's feature opens with a visitor standing on the Wushao Ling viewing platform at 3,052 m with snow mountains stretching away, and it says that the highest stretches of the Han and Ming Great Walls meet here.

The ridge is also the point at which the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway and later the Lanzhou-Zhangye high-speed line cross the range; China Gansu Web's feature describes three generations of Wushao Ling tunnel, the first opened to traffic in May 1954 as a key works on the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway and the third carrying high-speed trains through at 250 km an hour.

What to look for

• The view from the 3,052 m viewing platform, which China Gansu Web's feature describes as snow mountains stretching a thousand li
• The ridge line of the eastern Qilian range, whose main peak China Gansu Web and Wuwei News Network both give as 3,562 m
• The stretch of Han and Ming Great Wall that China Gansu Web's feature says meets here
• The three generations of railway tunnel under the ridge, which China Gansu Web's feature follows from the 1954 first tunnel to the high-speed line

Location & getting there

Getting to Wushaoling Pass Official Viewpoint

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 乌鞘岭正规开放观景点 with 武威市 and 天祝藏族自治县.