World Heritage Huangshan closed for maintenance
THE popular UNESCO World Heritage tourist attraction Huangshan Mountain will be closed for 3 years to allow the vegetation to recover from damages made by tourists.
Huangshan or “Yellow Mountains” is renown for its beauty and has inspired countless landscape paintings, and attracts millions of visitors each year.
The Yellow Mountains are a marvel within an area of 154 square kilometres where there is a crowd of peaks, 72 of which have names indicating the shapes they resemble. Lotus Brightness Apex and Celestial Capital are the three major ones, all rising above 1,800 metres. The mountains are a body of granite, often with vertical joints. Erosion and fracture contributed to shape the rocks into huge columns giving rise to lofty peaks and deep ravines. When it is cloudy the pinnacles loom in mists as if they were visionary, while in sunshine they unfold in all their majesty and splendour.
The Yellow Mountains change their colour and appearance with the alternating seasons. In spring blooming flowers decorate the slopes in a riot of colour and fill the valleys with fragrance. In summer you see verdured peaks rising one upon another and nearby springs gurgling merrily. Autumn dresses the mountains in red and purple, as maples are all in blazing-red; winter turns them into a world of frost and ice with silver boughs and rocks everywhere.
So from ancient times it has been frequented by tourists seeking their mystery and admiring their scenery. They come to the conclusion that the fantastic pines, the grotesque rocks, the sea of clouds and the hot springs are the four major attractions of the Yellow Mountains.
