Horseshoe Mountain

Horseshoe Mountain

Horseshoe Mountain

About 20 kilometers from the ancient city of Tukzisayle, there is a rocky mountain featuring two large pits that closely resemble horse hooves. At the mountain’s summit, about 50 meters away from the hoof prints, there is a manger roughly 12 meters long. This is why the mountain is called Horseshoe Mountain. Legend has it that the hoof prints were made by the front hooves of the heavenly steed ridden by Tang Seng (the monk Xuanzang), while the back hooves are said to be in present-day Wushi County—hence the tale of the heavenly steed soaring through the skies. It is said that when Tang Seng was on his journey to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures, he spotted a relay station in the distance—now known as King Tang’s City—and wanted to stop there to rest. As he reined in his heavenly horse, the horse’s front hooves landed where the current hoof prints are. Inspired by the spiritual presence of Tang Seng, Horseshoe Mountain grew several millennium-old populus euphratica trees despite the lack of nearby water sources. The largest of these trees requires four to five people to encircle its trunk. Even more remarkably, one of the populus trees has leaves in five or six different shapes because the heavenly horse once tied itself to that tree.