Tomur Glacier

Tomur Glacier

Tomur Peak is located in Wensu County on the western side of the Tianshan Mountains, with an elevation of 7,435.3 meters. It is the highest peak in the Tianshan range, China’s largest modern glacier region, the foremost peak of the Tianshan, and has been designated as a national comprehensive nature reserve. It is also one of China’s six most beautiful glaciers.

The name “Tomur Peak” means “Iron Mountain” in the Uyghur language. In areas above 4,000 meters, even during the hot summer months, it remains a frigid world of ice and snow. The Tomur Peak region is one of China’s largest zones of active modern glaciation, featuring a total of 829 glaciers — 509 of which are within Chinese territory. The total glacier area spans 2,746 square kilometers, which is 1.3 times larger than the combined glacier area of the Qilian Mountains, with an ice volume of 350 billion cubic meters. This makes it the largest ice reserve in China, far surpassing the combined ice volumes of the Qilian Mountains and the Mount Everest region.

The glaciers in the Tomur region are subcontinental glaciers. There are over 20 glaciers longer than 10 kilometers here, with the longest being the Khan Tengri Glacier in the northern part of Tomur Peak. It is one of the world’s eight major valley glaciers, acclaimed as the “No. 1 Glacier Under Heaven,” stretching 60.8 kilometers across both China and Kyrgyzstan. The Tomur Glacier itself is 32 kilometers long, making it China’s premier glacier. Other well-known large glaciers include the Muzart Glacier, Kalagule Glacier, and Tugebai'erqi Glacier. Among the valley glaciers, there are many massive dendritic glaciers, which have been termed “Tomur Valley-type Glaciers” by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. These account for 85% of the total glacier volume.

Melting zones on the glaciers often feature thermo-karst phenomena, unfathomably deep glacial lakes, ice crevasses hundreds of meters deep, and the Tomur Glacier also boasts striking glacial wonders such as pale blue-green ice caves, ice mushrooms, and well-developed subglacial rivers. A large amount of glacial meltwater flows out from ice caves at the terminus of the glacier tongues. The weather on the mountain is highly changeable — sometimes the sky is clear blue, but suddenly deafening “thunder” will roar. Snow dust surges down in rolling waves, creating snow avalanches tens of meters high. For high-altitude explorers, spending the night in a tent means falling asleep to the sound of glacial streams and the dull rumble of boulders tumbling along ice-fed waterways — a uniquely wild experience.

To reach the Tomur Glacier, you can take a bus or flight from Urumqi to Aksu, then head north to Wensu and continue northward to Taghraq. From there, hike up the Qionglan River Valley to reach the southern slope of Tomur Peak. Another route is to travel 60 kilometers east from Wensu to Pochengzi, then hike 40 kilometers north along the Muer River Valley to reach Tugebai'erqi.