Zoige Songpan's Five Chapters of Hongyuan Prose

Go to Hongyuan, Zoige and Songpan in midsummer to see the grassland, escape the heat and feel the strange northwest Sichuan Plateau.

Walk into the grassland

After the car passed Dujiangyan, Wenchuan and Lixian and entered the boundary of Hongyuan, the towering mountains in front of me slowly disappeared and the green grass came into view. The farther you go, the more grass you have. I see, I have begun to enter the Zoige prairie, which covers an area of more than 30,000 square kilometers and covers the vast areas of Hongyuan, Zoige, Aba, Rangtang and Songpan.

When I boarded Liangzi, a tea town at an altitude of 4,345 meters, my eyes were suddenly enlightened and radiant, and a strong sense of beauty shocked my vision: the beam was covered with orange sunshine, and the sunset cast the top of the beam on the undulating grass under the beam. The huge shadow was bright and impressive, and the grass outside the shadow was golden and distant.

On the journey from Hongyuan County to Zoige 100 kilometers, we walked through the vast grassland completely. Depending on the terrain, the grass is flat for a while, undulating for a while, gully beams for a while, and slopes for a while. Grassland dam, Ma Pingchuan, as far as the eye can see. This grassland, not as towering as the forest, not as bright as the night sky, not as noisy as the city, is magnificent and distant, which makes people admire, and it cleans our hearts quietly and calmly.

Grass on the grassland generally only reaches people's calves. Compared with the northern grassland, it is not so tall, and the growing season is earlier, and it begins to turn yellow in early August.

Grassland is green, vibrant, atmospheric and eye-catching, and it is the most beautiful color on the earth. The green of grassland is changing, tender in the morning, green during the day, yellow in the sun and soft and moist in the rain.

Herds of cattle, sheep and horses are scattered all over the grassland, with tents in the middle. Cattle, sheep and horses bowed their heads and grazed in droves. They are gentle, careful, collective and orderly. This piece of white, this piece of black, this piece of yellow, so leisurely, so calm, it seems that they are the masters of the leisurely world, as if they know that this grassland is their home.

Assuming that there are no cattle, sheep and horses on the grassland, the grassland will be very lonely. Assuming that there are no cattle, sheep and horses on the grassland, it will certainly not be so lush, and their existence will make the grassland fertile and powerful. It is this interaction and harmony that makes grasslands, cattle, sheep and horses stretch on the magical northwest Sichuan Plateau.

This endless green, this scattered herd of cattle, sheep and horses, and this quiet nature adjust people's mood to the best state.

Different skies

After crossing Liangzi, a tea town with an altitude of more than 4,000, it completely entered the Hongyuan, Zoige and Songpan areas and entered the western Sichuan Plateau. At this time, the sky will give you a vivid impression and let you find that the sky is different from our Sichuan basin.

Here, the ground is next to the sky, and the sky is connected to the ground. Clusters of clouds are always eye-catching. In the distance, the clouds lie on the grassland, and the grassland leans against the clouds; Overhead, the clouds are very long, or suddenly float by. In the past, there is a group of strong sunlight swaying.

Look at that cloud. Many times it is piled up like a mountain, with waves of buildings, and sometimes it is a single pile and two piles, such as mushrooms. Sometimes it is thick, sometimes it is elegant, sometimes it is clear and layered, sometimes it is hazy and foggy, sometimes it is motionless, and sometimes it is erratic. Clouds are rich and fresh in color, thick and magnificent, sometimes golden in the sun, sometimes white, sometimes silver gray, sometimes deep red, gray blue and black in the wind and rain, orange yellow, orange yellow and bright gold at sunset, and gradually turn into deep purple, blue and black in the twilight.

When the car approached Hongyuan County, a carmine purple ink cloud in the shape of a large airship appeared in the evening sky. There should be no wind in the sky. After staying in the garage for a few minutes, the airship did not change, and its edge arc was still clear. I don't know when I followed two rows of herringbone formations composed of flying geese-the same carmine purple ink cloud, which lasted for a long time. Is this the cloud showing its talent? Or convey the reluctant mood to all the creatures on the ground?

Here the sky is clear, the air is clear and transparent, and the dome is deep and high; When it rains, the sky is overcast, gray, blue and black clouds cover the sky and cover the grassland low; The night sky is dark and low, full of stars, a crescent moon shines like a sky lantern on the plateau, and the night sky is open and dreamy.

Maybe the ground is closer to the sky, or there is no shelter from tall buildings and trees. Compared with the humid and sultry sky in Sichuan Basin, the sky here is broad and transparent, and it looks like clouds and stars with the eyes. At noon, you can also see the crescent moon hanging in the blue sky.

Here, the clouds are close to you, the stars are close to you, the moon is close to you, and the whole sky is close to you.

Different climates

The climate of Hongyuan, Zoige and Songpan is quite different from that of Sichuan Basin.

In the midsummer at the end of July, the average daily temperature here is only about eleven degrees, which is more than twenty degrees lower than Zigong. The temperature is one to four degrees in the morning and evening, which is the winter weather in Zigong. The sun is 20 degrees, so you can wear skirts and shorts. In other words, on the day of departure, I traveled from the dog days of Zigong in the morning to the cold weather here that night; In other words, at this time of the year, this area will experience the change of four seasons in almost one day.

On the night I arrived in Hongyuan, I was afraid of altitude sickness on the one hand, and cold and sweaty on the other, so I simply didn't take a shower. There are no fans in hotels here in summer.

Because of the great temperature difference, in the midday sun, local Tibetans can be seen from time to time wearing thick sheepskin robes, which they wear when they go out in the morning. I guess they are worried that if the sun can't stand the cold all day, they will have to cope with the changeable weather like this.

This climate made me bite the bullet and stick to it for a few days when I just arrived here and brought an extra cotton long-sleeved shirt.

The difference in climate lies in the impermanence of rain or shine. When the car was driving, a cluster of dark clouds suddenly floated in the clear sky, and then it rained heavily on the window from time to time. In a few words, the sun appeared again, and soon, it may be dark clouds and raindrops again.

Stranger still, at noon one day, when I was having lunch at Sichuan Ba Ranch at the junction of Songpan and Zoige counties in Hongyuan, I just got into the tent and heard the roof crackling. I heard the Tibetan waiter say it was snowing in panic. People go out one after another and see many white transparent grains like rice grains jumping around on the grass. I picked up two and looked at them carefully. I thought it was hail, but it was actually hail. Looking up at the sky, snowflakes drift with the wind, mixed with light rain. People exclaimed, but couldn't hold back the cold, and soon hid in the tent, while the children chased and played happily on the open grass.

After more than an hour, the sky was clear. After driving out from the dining place for more than 20 minutes, I saw unfinished snow on the side of the road, and the top of the mountain was covered with white teeth. It seems that there was heavy rain in this area when it snowed earlier.

This is my first time to experience winter and snow in dog days, only over 300 kilometers away from Pingba area.

A grassy swamp

When I go to Hongyuan and Zoige, one of my greatest wishes is to see the mysterious swamp. The swamp is vast and inaccessible to most people. After asking my friends, I chose to go to the Flower Lake in Zoige, a corner of the swamp.

There are many tourists in Huahu Lake, and people patiently queue up at the gate of the scenic spot to wait for the environmental protection bus that travels from time to time. Take the bus, cross the grassy open swamp, and enter the central scenic spot in ten minutes. There is a wooden plank road extending to the hinterland of the swamp, and there are wooden leisure pavilions and viewing buildings scattered beside the plank road. Without too much construction, this plateau swamp wetland has become a famous tourist attraction with beautiful scenery. It is called Huahu Lake, which is the spring season from late June to early July every year. The lakes and marshes are full of baskets of yellow, red and purple white flowers. It was the end of July when I came, and the flowering period had passed, leaving only a few white flowers and yellow flowers swaying gently in the breeze in the swamp grass.

The swamp is covered with sea leek grass, and the grass bottom is gray-black and gray-black mud. The grass is waist-deep, dense and soft, and the green oil is endless. Deep in the swamp, the meadow with Carex wulanensis is covered with sparse and dense puddles, and there are gray-green fish with long fingers swimming fast in places with plenty of water. Further inside, there is a huge lake with colorful clouds and distant mountains. There are white bones, terns and wild ducks swimming in the water. Some of them feed with their beaks, while others fly low on the water. These waterfowl are used to getting along with people, and even if they are close to people, they are not afraid. A wild duck with two lovely ducklings is lying or standing in the grass on the shore, combing its feathers and resting in front of tourists.

Huahu Lake is too big, and the winding sightseeing plank road is more than ten kilometers long, and only part of it can be seen. The distant mountain ridge stretches to the distant horizon, and the Zoige swamp with more than 3,000 square kilometers is low and flat, and has been sleeping on the vast plain surrounded by this long mountain ridge for thousands of years.

The pursuit of a better life has never stopped, and we have easily turned the desolate swamp into a picturesque tourist attraction. Facing the blue sky and white clouds, the mighty blue waves and the lush green grass, we should never forget the Red Army soldiers who died here when they crossed this no-man's land with heroic troops of national hope in the great long March of world military feats.

Trace back to Minjiang River

Longbangou, the source of Minjiang River in Gonggangling, Songpan County, is just a stream at the southern foot of Minshan Mountain. The clear source, flowing out for dozens of kilometers, carries the gray sediment from the northwest plateau of Sichuan, and the Minjiang River is muddy with this mortar color. The river flows through the steep and towering mountains of Songpan, Maoxian and Wenchuan, flows down from the plateau, enters Dujiangyan, flows to Leshan, takes Dadu River and Qingyi River, and joins the Yangtze River in Yibin.

From the source to Dujiangyan, it is the upper reaches of Minjiang River and my return trip. For more than 300 kilometers, I sometimes stop in the car and always follow curiously to observe how this stream gradually merges into a river.

Almost all the roads along the way are built along the river. The Minjiang River starts from Songpan Chuanzhusi Town and has been rolling down with us, next to the 2 13 national road. In a long section of Songpan, the current is only a small ditch with a width of two or three meters, and the water is shallow and bare. Later, the river gradually expanded, and some sections were about ten meters wide and a little deeper, which looked like a small river. This small river flows down the mountain in a hurry, and sometimes a stream from a nearby ravine joins it on the way; When encountering the rock ridge, the river flutters and rolls; When the riverbed is narrow, the river swells; When the water meets the occasional rocks in the river, it will cause backflow and set off waves. After passing through Songpan Hydrological Station, which is more than 0/00 kilometers away from/kloc-,the river channel is 20 to 30 meters wide and the water flow gradually becomes larger. Along the way, the valley is steep and narrow, and the Minjiang River is still a small river, but the current is more urgent and faster.

By the time the Minjiang River reached Diexi Haizi, a dammed lake formed by the Maoxian earthquake in the 1930s, the river surface was already 40 to 50 meters wide, and the river water in the depression under the roadside cliff had become green, blue and clear. Below Diexi Haizi, there is a black river with a river surface of 50 to 60 meters wide. Further down, the river sometimes narrows slightly, sometimes reaching nearly 100 meters. After Wenchuan merged into Zagunao River, the width of the river increased to more than 100 meters, and it began to look like a river. Yingxiu Town, Wenchuan, another roe stream flows into Minjiang River. The river is wider and the water flows more smoothly. After years of river erosion, smooth stones piled up on the beach.

Along the way, rolling stones rolled down the mountains on both sides, and a mountain top in Wenchuan area kept slipping down the mountain, with dry white dust and smoke in the sun. Regardless of this, the Minjiang River almost came to Pingba singing. Arriving at Zipingpu in Dujiangyan City, the river is nearly 200 meters, which is basically the Minjiang River with wide and gentle gypsum color that we usually see in the middle and lower reaches. Tracing back to here, not far from Dujiangyan, it satisfies this curiosity about Minjiang River.

My friend, as long as you get to the source of Minjiang River in Songpan, and then take a bus through Maoxian and Wenchuan to Dujiangyan, with a little care, you can witness with your own eyes how Minjiang River merged from a small stream into a big river.