Ertix Grand Canyon

Ertix Grand Canyon

Ertix Grand Canyon is located within Fuyun County in the Altay region of Xinjiang, and is a major attraction in the Keketuohai National Geopark. Along the Ertix River, rows of granite peaks stand opposite each other, continuous and undulating, with rounded cliffs and diverse forms. Each peak tells a beautiful story, earning the name "One Hundred and Eight Peaks." Even more remarkable are the surfaces of these granite peaks, which are mostly covered with dense honeycomb-like pits and vertical grooves resembling solidified giant waterfalls—truly like petrified waterfalls.

The Ertix River is the only outward-flowing river in China that runs from east to west into the Arctic Ocean. With a total length of 2,969 kilometers, 546 kilometers of which lie within China, it leaves behind a string of beautiful and fertile oases and pastures along its course. Flowing through Keketuohai in Fuyun County, Altay, Xinjiang, it forms a grand canyon nearly 100 kilometers long.

Ertix Grand Canyon begins at Keketuohai. Starting from Fuyun County along the banks of the Ertix River, after navigating 108 winding mountain roads, bypassing Kekesu Lake, and passing through Keketuohai Town, you enter what locals call Dadonggou. Also known as Bell Mountain Canyon, Dadonggou has an overall “U” shape, stretching approximately 8 kilometers in length, with a base width of about 10–40 meters, through which the Ertix River flows. On both banks stand countless uniquely shaped peaks and rocks, including Bell Mountain, Flying Peak, Camel Peak, Elephant Peak, Eagle Peak, Little Stone Gate, and Centaur Face—all steep, exposed granite cliffs. What’s even more unique is that these oddly shaped peaks mostly take on bell, dome, or cone shapes. Their surfaces are often dotted with dense honeycomb-like pits and vertical grooves that look like frozen giant waterfalls. These distinctive granite peaks, together with the forested areas dominated by fir, pine, birch, and poplar trees, and the turbulent Ertix River with its jumbled rocks and rushing waters, naturally create rugged, desolate, and tranquil landscapes—each a vivid scroll of nature’s artistry.

Formation

On August 11, 1931,

a magnitude 8 earthquake struck a line from Keketuohai in Xinjiang, China, southward to Kalaxianggar. The epicentral area extended from Armand Mountain in Qinghe County in the south to the Keketuohai Basin in the north, creating a surface rupture zone stretching 176 kilometers. This massive quake affected nearly the entire globe, with areas experiencing strong tremors spanning a diameter of 2,500 kilometers. At the Kalaxianggar epicenter, the quake formed a collapsed center about 9 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide, where rock layers were torn apart into trenches 6 meters wide and over 10 meters deep. The fractured and collapsed mountain slopes, with scarps over 60 meters high, remain well-preserved to this day. The edges of the epicentral area, including the Keketuohai region, also bear the dramatic remnants of this seismic event.

The earthquake faults cut through mountains and valleys, crossed gullies and ravines. Along the fault zone, basins sank, lakes expanded, water deepened, and mountains collapsed with rolling boulders tumbling down... This not only directly formed several major wetland lakes such as Kekesu Lake, Yilimu Lake, and Keketuohai, but also catalyzed and nurtured the magnificent and spectacular landforms and scenery of today’s Ertix Grand Canyon. Today, the Keketuohai National Geopark—comprising Kekesu Lake, Yilimu Lake, the Kalaxianggar Earthquake Fault Zone, and Ertix Grand Canyon—stands as nature’s most precious gift and legacy to this vibrant landscape and to future generations, hiding within it a wealth of mysteries and stories.

The unique rocky landforms of Ertix Grand Canyon were shaped by the large porphyritic biotite granite from the Yanshanian period, approximately 208 to 65 million years ago. A key structural feature of this type of granite is its distinctly concentric layered joints—simply put, these are fracture planes roughly parallel to the slope of the ground. Due to the cold temperate continental climate here, intense frost weathering has caused the granite to continuously break apart and collapse layer by layer, much like peeling away shells, thus forming smooth, rounded yet extremely steep mountain forms. As for the pits on the surface, they are mainly due to the erosion and detachment of coarse mineral crystals, concentrated megacrysts, and parts rich in biotite, under prolonged weathering and the effects of freezing and thawing. The vertical grooves, meanwhile, result from the erosive action of slope runoff and the repeated freeze-thaw cycles in the rock’s surface pore zones.

Literature

The Altai Mountains, known since ancient times as the “Golden Mountains and Silver Waters,” along with the Ertix River, have never lacked admiration. “To the south of Golden Mountains flows a great river, winding through bends where one enjoys the pure autumn hues. At dusk, the river and sky meet as the mountain moon rises—chanting alone under the shimmering night sphere.” This is a verse by the great Yuan Dynasty poet Qiu Chuji describing the Ertix River. Facing the Altai Mountains, Yelü Chucai, a renowned literary talent of the Yuan Dynasty and a man of the Khitan ethnicity, once praised them with enthusiasm: “A thousand cliffs compete in beauty, refreshing the soul; myriad valleys rush with streams, magnifying the view. Clouds rise and part, moistening the hazy hues; winds rise atop pine peaks, drying the sound of rain. The scenery fills my poetry satchel—I gaze upon the mountains again and again, each time with new awe.”