Aug-2013
Huanglong Valley National Park
Before leaving Aba Province after two days visiting Jiuzhaigou the third day and also the last day we are visiting Huanglong before go to airport for night flight to Chengdu. As before mentioned in Jiuzhaigou post we have already arrange chaffeur to drove us from hotel to Huanglong and then to airport. The distance from Angelie Hotel to this place is 136Km pass thru the airport. So after finish from the Huanglong we drove back again with same rute for 69Km long.
Huanglong Valley
Huanglong literally mean “yellow dragon”, is a scenic and historic interest area in the northwest part of Sichuan, China. It is located in the southern part of the Minshan mountain range, 150 kilometres (93 mi) north-northwest of the capital Chengdu. This area is known for its colorful pools formed by calcite deposits, especially in Huanglonggou (Yellow Dragon Gully), as well as diverse forest ecosystems, snow-capped peaks, waterfalls and hot springs. Huanglong was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1992.
Due to thousands of years of geological evolution, Huanglong consists of numerous unique landscapes of geological landforms. Glacial revolution, terrane structure, stratum of carbonic acid rock, tufa water and climatic conditions such as Arctic-alpine sun light have created this world-famous travertine landscape. These accumulated travertine landscapes and pools are Huanglong’s main attraction.
Huanglong covers an area of 1830 sq km at an altitude between 1700m and 5588m. Major scenic areas include:
- Huanglong Valley – The total length of the travertine in Huanglong Valley is 3.6 km and it is thought to look like a huge golden dragon wheeling through the snow-capped mountains of the valley. The main landscapes are travertine banks, colorful ponds and travertine waterfalls and caves. The main body of water starts from the ancient Buddhist/Benbo temple at the top of the valley and ends at the Guests Welcome Pond in the north with a length of 2.5 km and a width of 30–170m. The colours of Huanglong’s waters consist of yellows, greens, blues and browns.
- Danyun Gorge (Red Cloud Gorge)
- Muni Valley
- Xuebaoding (Snow Mountain Peak) – 5588m
- Xueshan Ridge (Snow Mountain Ridge) – 4007m, the highest point on the road from Jiuhuang Airport to Huanglong Valley.
- Red Star Rock
- Sigou (Fourth Gully)
The walking path in this area is already provided with wooden path, so make it easy to walk the area. But the long distance combination with contour slope and high altitude make our stamina really quick tired, also it was raining that day.
Finished up from there, we continue to airport. But before that we make a stop at Songpan for having an evening lunch. Songpan is an ancient city countryside that was build during Tang Dynasty, the building in this area still resemblance the old.
Continue the trip, we stop again at local herbs store on purpose to find chinese herbs requested by grandmother. Then after that to the airport. Since it’s raining all day and getting night become bigger in to a storm, so the flight had been delayed for about 2-3 hours. That’s make us departing from Jiuzhaigou at midnight rather than the initial schedule at 9:00 pm.
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