Beautiful Yangtian Lake
2023-09-28 15:11:13
Through the dense sub primeval forest and over the rolling mountains, you will see a rare alpine grassland in the southern region. The grassland stretches to the mountains in the distance.
When the sky is clear, visitors can ride horses, feed deer, herd sheep and go grass skiing under the blue sky and white clouds. It is really a strange and surprising experience for people who grew up in the South.
Though there is no such a view of the grassland melting into the sky due to the undulating hilly terrain, there is something unique: stone forest, ten-mile azalea forest, fields in heavy fog, mountain sunrise, Tongtiandong Gorge, and waterfalls. You can visit the Hobbit Castle, passing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, when the huge blades of the windmills are slowly rotating at the distant mountains.
In the past, every year after the spring ploughing, the villagers would herd the cattle, horses and sheep to Yangtian Lake, allowing them to live freely in the alpine grassland for a few months, and then herd them back in the winter. Sometimes, two cows were released, but three cows were brought back - they had a calf. Locals refer to this particular type of grazing as “floating cattle”.
Nowadays, herdsmen are nowhere to be found. The grazing now is more for viewing than for a living, which is a good thing for the local ecological protection. Since June 2020, the green coverage rate of Yangtian Lake Grassland has increased from 64% before restoration to 91%.
The alpine grassland hidden in the hinterland of the mountains was found accidentally, which carries the southerners’ dream of herding horses on the grassland.
A dead crater gifted by the Quaternary ice Age has become the Yangtian Lake Grassland, which is a bright pearl hanging beside the divide of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River and near the intersection of Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway, and is also “a tear on the earth”.
