Mout Cangshan

        The Cangshan Mountain, which is in the southern end of the middle branch of Yunling Mountain, branch of Hengduan Mountains, is the significantly geological demarcation point. The northwest of the CangShan Mountain is Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with an extension length of thousands kilometers and at the altitude more than 4,000 m. The southeast of the Cangshan Mountain is the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau with an average altitude of 2,000 m. As the magnificent Himalayan Mountains ends at the Cangshan Mountain, there is no mountain that can be up to 3,500 m from the south of the Cangshan Mountain. Therefore, the Cangshan Mountain is known as "the eave of the roof of the world".

        The Cangshan Mountain is the skyline of the Dali. The north-south length of the Cangshan Mountain is 50 km, and the east-west width is 10-20 km. The altitude of Malong Peak, main peak of the Cangshan Mountain, is 4,122 m. The Cangshan Mountain consists of nineteen peaks in total. There is a stream between every two peaks of the Cangshan Mountain, forming a unique landscape of “Nineteen Peaks and Eighteen Streams”.

Top of the Cangshan Mountain

Malong Peak

North Part of the Cangshan Mountain——Jiciba

Flashy Stream

        The Cangshan Mountain is a both old and young mountain: old in terms of its rocks mainly shaped about 2 billion years ago, young in sense of its relative short history of the Cangshan Mountain as a high mountain. The Cangshan Mountain, which is developed as a result of the Himalayan orogeny for 50 million years, is one of the youngest mountains in the world.

        The Cangshan Mountain is composed of metamorphic rocks. Shaped more than 2 billion years ago in the Proterozoic eon, these rocks become various metamorphic rocks by complex geological modification. There are more than ten types of metamorphic rocks, including killas, schist, gneiss, and migmatite. The mountain can be called the textbook of metamorphic rocks.

Vertical Joint of Migmatitic Granite

        The Cangshan Mountain is the place to name the marble in China, for such marbles originated from the Cangshan Mountain are the most typical and unique. The marbles from the Cangshan Mountain are colorful with beautiful pattern. Since the Tang Dynasty, the marbles have always been admired and cherished by people. The marbles are regarded as the masterpiece of the nature, forming a unique “marble culture”.

Marble

        The Cangshan Mountain is the place to name the “Dali Glaciation”. Dali Glaciation as the Last Glacial of Quaternary approximately 10,000 years ago. It was very cold at that time and mountains were covered by ice and snow. However, the Cangshan Mountain in Dali is the southernmost mountain with glacier in China, even in Asia. Nowadays, although the glacial was gone, the landform shaped by the glacial is distributed at an altitude of above 3,600 m, including horn, arête, cirque, and moraines. These have important scientific value in the study of paleogeography and paleoclimate changes.

Arête of the Cangshan Mountain

Early Morning of The Cangshan Mountain

        The cloudscape of the Cangshan Mountain is changeable, the most famous of which are “Wang Fu Cloud” and “Jade Belt Cloud”. The Wang Fu Cloud will appear at the top of the Yuju Peak in winter and spring every year. When the cloud disappears, the Erhai Lake causes rough waters due to strong winds and the fishing boats cannot go to sea. Therefore, the Wang Fu Cloud is also known as “Wudu Cloud”. The Jade Belt Cloud is not only charming and moving, but also a symbol of bumper harvest as the Bai nationality farmer's proverb says, when the Jade Belt Cloud appears on the Cangshan Mountain, the hungry dogs will eat rice for rich harvest.

Cloud Around Shimen Pass

        The CangShan Mountain in Dali is one of the vegetation that is completely preserved in China. It has obvious biological diversity. The Cangshan Mountain consists of 9 vegetation types and 13 vegetation subtypes. There are a total of more than 2,600 vascular plants in the Cangshan Mountain, including many unique, rare and endangered plants, such as Abies delavayi Franch and rhododendron dimitrum. In addition, the Cangshan Mountain in Dali is also the important plant type locality, where the new plant species collected from the Cangshan Mountain are more than 180 types. It is rare in China and the rest of the world.

Spring Scenery in Cangshan Mountain

Azaleas in Bloom in Guanfangping

        The Cangshan Mountain provides a good habitat for animals due to huge elevation differences, steep landform, and exuberant vegetation. The Cangshan Mountain is abundant in fauna species with a total of 604 species of terrestrial vertebrates, including 132 species of mammalia, 201 species of birds, and 25 species of reptiles. There are many protected animals, including clouded leopards, black bears, lesser pandas, and takins.

Lady Amherst's Pheasants