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It is easy to forget that a country with 1.3 billion people and which seems to make a large percentage of the world’s goods from endless factories actually has some outstanding scenery. China’s mountains are largely unknown to foreigners but just look a topographical map of China and you can see there huge areas of wild, mountainous terrain. The obvious range is the Himalaya’s in Tibet and bordering and crossing into Nepal. Other huge ranges can be found in Xinjiang province (the Parmirs, Altai and Tian Chi ranges), The Kunlun range in Qinghai province and the sacred mountains that dot China from Sichuan to Beijing. China.org has a list of it’s top ten here and below are some of the ones we have explored in recent years.

The Harbin Ice Festival has been underway for a week now. Sadly, I have not been able to go this year but there are plenty of photos on the web to see of this year’s exhibits. The best collection of have found is here – from the Boston Big Picture site. My photo below is  few years out of date but still – enjoy.

Beijing seems to be getting a particularly icy blast of winter at the moment with the coldest temperatures in 50 years and plenty of snowfall. Click here for a China Daily slideshow…

Also, a news report from Danwei here and some excellent snowy photos on Zhao Hua Xi Shi’s Flickr photostream here.

If you are in Beijing and wondering what to do with all this snow here is a list of suggestions in the Beijinger.

We arrived in Lanzhou, Gansu province’s capital at 7am after a comfortable nights sleep on the train from Jiayuguan. The city itself is a bit of an urban hell – at least today. Pollution was terrible – toxic – you could feel it in your throat and mouth from the start. Thankfully the day was to be spent a long way outside of the city at the grottoes at Bing Ling Si. An hour and an half by car and a further hour by speedboat up the Yellow River takes you there through fantastic mountainous scenery. As with other places on this trip we largely had it to ourselves. Sadly, the main 26m high Buddha was damaged in the 2008 earthquake 800km away in Sichuan. It is now covered in scaffolding while repairs are carried out. There are scores of other smaller statues to see and the location up a small tributary of the Yellow River makes this a sight worthy of the journey. Next stop Xining, capital of Qinghai province and a step closer to Tibet.

Over the weekend Beijing had its first snowfall this year and it is early (and possibly induced). Earliest for 22 years according to the South China Morning Post. Photos of the latest snowfall can be seen in the China Daily here. Also a slide show here from China.org

Despite the cold winters snowfall is not that common in Beijing with the weather being bright – well hazy – and extremely dry throughout the winter months. Photographing Beijing in the snow was never an easy thing. Firstly, as mentioned, snowfall is rare. Then, when it did snow, armies of street sweepers appeared almost immediately to start removing the snow. The emphasis is on removing – it literally disappeared in a matter of hours – a war against snow. So in a very short time much of the city looked completely snow free. Then, any snow remaining quickly lost it’s whiteness due to the usually dirty air becoming a horrible gray and providing an unwelcome remainder as to what you are breathing in!

So, the upshot is that in all my years in Beijing I only really caught a good untouched snowfall once – some photos of which are below – from way back in February 2006!