A rare large stone forest, located at the intersections of the
Yellow River and the Great Wall in northwest China's
Gansu
Province opened to tourists recently.
Covering an area of 10 square kilometers, the Yellow River Stone
Forest is located at Laolongwan (Old Dragon Bay) Village in Jingtai
County, Gansu Province. Made of yellow gravel, it was the magic
creation of nature in more than 4 million years.
Looking from the terrace standing at the entrance, you see a
magnificent landscape of river, stone forest, desert and oasis. It
looks even more beautiful when mist lingering on the slopes of the
Qilian
Mountains on the opposite bank of the Yellow River serves as
its backdrop. The sunshine casts the whole valley in dark red,
making it appear like the Grand Canyon in the United States.
It
was reported that the Yellow River Stone Forest was discovered by a
fieldwork team of the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources in
1990 and announced to the public in 1996. Due to inconvenient
transport, however, it remained beyond tourists' reach until a road
was completed recently.
(China.org.cn by Wang Zhiyong on December 19, 2002)