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Yulong Snow Mountain (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) stands beside the Jinshajiang River, northwest of the Lijiang Naxi Autonomous County, Yunnan Province. Shanzidou, the main peak of the mountain, clad in white snow all year round, rises 5,596 meters above sea level. The 13 peaks, distributed from the south to the north, with the south-north length of 35 km and the east-west width of 12 km, are like a silver white jade dragon lying in the clouds, hence the name Yulong (jade dragon) Snow Mountain. Numerous species of plants grow in the mountain, and are distributed vertically in accordance with height and climate. The mountain enjoys the fame of the Treasure House of Plants.
Scientists say Yulong Snow Mountain arose from an ancient geosyncline 230 million years ago in an age when dinosaurs began to increase and formed her present shape sometime during the last 600,000 years, even as late as 12,000 years ago.
Storms frequently rage around the glaciers and silver-gray rocks and eternal snowfields of her five primary peaks.
Yulong Snow Mountain is a sanctuary to animals that know not the scent of man and a flower kingdom that was old when the Gardens of Babylon were new. In the alpine meadows of her lower slopes, lonely herders sing to their goats and set the wild echoes flying with the music of their reed pipes.
Yulong Snow Mountain is a botanist's paradise, a " kingdom of medicinal materials." Of the 1 3,000 kinds of plants in Yunnan, more than half of them can be found on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain as well as 400 types of trees in 20 primevial forest communities. On her slopes grow such trees as fir, dragon spruce, Chinese hemlock, Chinese larch, and fragrant camphor.
Yulong Snow Mountain has more than 50 species of azalea, 60 kinds of primroses, eight species of poppies and 20 lilies, four species of peonies, five camellia, 50 species of rough gentian, and six kinds of flowering crabapple. From April to June the azaleas turn the mountain into a riot of brilliant color. And in autumn blue rough gentian flowers cover her marshlands. She is decorated with blooming flowers 10 months of the year.
Yulong Snow Mountain is home to a rare tea - Wild Snow Tea -which the Naxi insist is good for high blood pressure. It ripens in the winter time and Naxi men, women and children flock to the mountain in November, December and January to pick it. When dried, it resembles tiny strips of dried apples whitened by the sun.
The mountain is also a sanctuary for animals, many of them rare animals that live at different temperature levels. Yulong Snow Mountain is home to 30 kinds of animals protected by the state, such as the wild ass, the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, the lesser panda, the forest musk deer, the clouded leopard, the blood pheasant, the silver pheasant, and the spotted, yellowish civet cat.
Yulong Snow Mountain is one of Yunnan's protcted nature reserves, and a certain fee is charged to those for making scientific investigations, collecting animal and plant specimens, taking photos and shooting films.
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