Salim Lake - the last tear of the Atlantic Ocean

Xinjiang is a good place no. 12

A post in the Xinjiang hiking community said that Sailimu Lake is the last tear left by the Atlantic Ocean on the Asian continent. Many people didn't understand what it meant. Later, the owner of the post said that the Atlantic Ocean is the ocean with the deepest color and the most varied colors among the major oceans.

The azure Sailimu Lake is so colorful and ever-changing that it is amazing to compare it to the tears falling from the Atlantic Ocean.

Sailimu means "blessing" and "wishes" in Mongolian. Sailimu Lake is called "Salimuzhuoer" in Mongolian, which means "the lake on the ridge".

Sailimu Lake is located in the Tianshan Mountains in Bole City, Xinjiang. It is an alpine basin with an altitude of 2,073 meters, an area of ??457 square kilometers, and a maximum depth of 92 meters. The lake is oval in shape.

The lake is surrounded by beautiful mountain forests, lakeside grasslands and dotted yurts.

When I first arrived at Sailimu Lake, I was stunned by it. In an instant, my brain seemed to have short-circuited. I have seen many lakes, but this is the first time that the water and sky are the same color, and the blue lake water makes you mesmerized.

What is even more surprising is that at a glance, the lake surface is colorful from different angles, and it seems to have brought you into a dream inadvertently.

The flat lakeside, rich water plants and beautiful scenery are the largest natural pasture north of the Tianshan Mountains.

The little donkey pressed against its mother’s belly in search of milk source as if there was no one around. The grazing children looked blankly at our camera with snot in their eyes. Everything was full of original beauty.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, the cattle and sheep are like pearls and agates. Looking at it, it is so beautiful.

Rafting on Sailimu Lake, you can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance, the meadows nearby, and the dotted yurts, like cattle and sheep dotted with stars, the lake and the sky are one color, and they are one. At this time, "there are so many mountains and rivers" The poem "Be charming, attracting countless heroes to bow their waists" seems to be echoing in my ears.

Even in midsummer, the lake surface temperature in Sailimu Lake is only about 16℃. Due to the cold temperature, almost no living things grow in the lake, and only a small amount of plankton survives. But all this has precisely contributed to the breeding of cold-water fish in the high mountains of Xinjiang. This place has become a "villa" for precious fish such as Yaluo and high whitefish to "live".

Zhang Zhiwei/Wen Bing Photography