Gongga Glacier

Gongga Glacier

Climbing a glacier is a dream for many. In people's minds, glaciers are not only cold and high-altitude but also mysterious and remote — places accessible only to explorers, mountaineers, and scientists. However, the Hailuogou Glacier Forest Park made it possible for ordinary people to realize their glacier dreams. On January 1, 2000, the first day of the new millennium, the magical and fascinating Hailuogou Glacier Park officially opened to domestic and international tourists. The Hailuogou Glacier Forest Park is an important part of the Gongga Mountain Scenic Area, a national key scenic spot, and is set to become one of China’s most attractive tourist destinations in the 21st century.

The main peak of Gongga Mountain stands at an elevation of 7,556 meters, making it an extreme highland on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Hailuogou is a glacially eroded river valley on the eastern slope of Gongga Mountain’s main peak, encompassing a 13-kilometer glacier composed of solid water bodies. The Hailuogou Glacier Park is located on the eastern slope of Gongga Mountain, 282 kilometers from Chengdu, stretching 30.7 kilometers in length with a scenic area of 197 square kilometers. The valley entrance is in Moxi Town, Luding County, and it is a large-scale comprehensive scenic area that integrates low-altitude maritime modern glaciers, hot springs, snow-capped mountains, pristine forests, and ancient glacial lakes. The Hailuogou scenic area is of significant sightseeing and scientific research value due to its easily accessible modern glaciers and a highly diverse and pristine landscape ecosystem, which has garnered widespread attention both domestically and internationally.

The renowned glaciologist C.B. Kalesnik once defined a glacier as: “A glacier is a body of ice that moves according to certain laws, primarily found on continents and capable of existing over long periods; it has a certain form and considerable size, formed through the accumulation and recrystallization of various solid atmospheric precipitations.” This definition establishes multiple characteristics of glaciers and is certainly a comprehensive one. In essence, the most important features of a glacier are: glacier ice is deposited ice formed from atmospheric snowfall; glacier ice is metamorphic ice created through a series of 'metamorphic processes' from accumulated snow; and it moves under the influence of gravity. Based on these characteristics, glaciers can be distinguished from other types of ice accumulations, such as lake or river ice. Simply put, a glacier is ice formed from the metamorphosis of accumulated snow and capable of movement.

Glacier tourism destinations abroad can be divided into two categories: one includes those named as glacier parks, such as the Alpine Glacier Park in Switzerland, the Rocky Mountain National Glacier Park in the United States, and the Glaciarium Park in Argentina; the other category includes destinations where glaciers are one of the main attractions, such as the Rose Peak Tourist Area in the Swiss-Italian Alps, Mount Rainier National Park and Mount McKinley National Park in the United States, and Langtang National Park in Nepal. These destinations each have their unique features. For example, the Rose Peak Tourist Area features a 4,536-meter-high glacial horn peak and glacier landscapes, along with alpine ski resorts and well-developed cable car systems. The Rocky Mountain Glacier Park boasts peaks at 3,000 meters, 50 glaciers (the largest of which covers 7.8 square kilometers), 250 lakes, and vast redwood forests. The Glaciarium Park allows visitors to view, from across the shore, the dramatic calving front of a 4-kilometer-wide, 60-meter-high glacier tongue extending into Argentina’s Lake Argentino. Langtang National Park features a 7,225-meter-high glacial horn peak, the Langtang Glacier — a 20-kilometer-long glacier characterized by buried ice tongues, ending at an altitude of 4,400 meters, lush forests, and vertical natural zoning landscapes ranging from tropical zones to snow-capped peaks.