Zheyang Mountain 遮阳山

About Zheyang Mountain

The Lanzhou Morning Post feature places Zheyang Mountain in Dacaotan township, Zhangxian county, at the 208 km mark of national highway 212, 29 km from the county seat, in the meeting zone of the western Qinling and the Minshan range. It calls the area a national forest park, a national 4A-rated scenic area and one of the main areas of the national climbing base, and says the name comes from the mountain screening off the sun at sunrise. The provincial A-level register carries the same area under the joint name 贵清山/遮阳山国家旅游景区, a 4A-rated scenic area, with the Zheyang Mountain side at Xinlian village in Dacaotan town.

The feature describes the landform as a karst sinkhole-and-fissure country rare in the north-west, listing karst planes, gorges, stone fissures, crevices, caves, funnels, depressions, shafts, sinkholes and natural bridges, with a little Danxia and karst scenery among them. It explains the sinkhole as a karst or sinkhole funnel: where soluble rock is widespread and rain abundant, surface water seeps down vertical fissures and dissolves them until the ground above collapses into a large funnel.

The mountain has three parts, the west stream, the east stream and Yimen Mountain. The west stream lies in the Puli valley, a 16 km course; the feature says the mountain belongs to the eastern outliers of the Qinling, so it has broad areas of mixed coniferous and broadleaf forest as well as many rock gullies and caves, with leopard, serow, musk deer and blue eared pheasant among the animals. In midsummer, it adds, the temperature generally stays below 25 degrees Celsius.

Along the west stream the feature notes the Santan waterfall, pouring from the cliff into the pool, and then the Tishi cliff by the Qianzhang pool, which carries Song and Ming carvings. Among them are a seven-character quatrain inscribed by Fang Yuanyi in the gengyin year of Jiajing in the Ming and a poem by Zhang Sanfeng of the Ming; more than 30 cliff carvings have been found at Zheyang Mountain, the feature says, and the Northern Song writers Zhang Shunmin and You Shixiong also left traces there.

The first half of the walk passes Shibao gate, Luobo spring, Erbao gate, Ren gate, Long gate and Yuelong pool, whose cold-water Qinling lenok the feature says was a local tribute in the Qing. At the end is the Simian cliff, also called Jinqian cliff, where only a rhombus of sky shows above; between its walls a single steel cable climbs one fissure and a stone stair leads up the Haohan slope. Climbing the stair, the feature describes alpine meadow spread like a carpet, sea buckthorn stretching out of sight, herds of yak and galloping horses, and the stream finally reaching the Zhang river, the county's mother river.

What to look for

• The sinkhole-and-fissure karst of the west stream, which the feature calls rare in the north-west
• The Simian cliff, also called Jinqian cliff, where only a rhombus of sky is visible, its steel cable up one fissure and the stone stair up the Haohan slope
• The Tishi cliff's Song and Ming carvings, among more than 30 cliff carvings the feature says have been found on the mountain
• The Santan waterfall pouring from the cliff into its pool
• The sequence of gates and pools along the west stream — Shibao gate, Luobo spring, Erbao gate, Ren gate, Long gate and Yuelong pool
• The alpine meadow, sea buckthorn, yaks and horses above the gorge
• The mixed coniferous and broadleaf forest and the rock gullies and caves of the Qinling's eastern outliers

Location & getting there

Getting to Zheyang Mountain

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 遮阳山 with 定西市 and 漳县.