Wenhai
Seasonal alpine wetland that vanishes underground each spring, ringed by yak pasture and a cooperative guesthouse.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Wenhai, a high alpine bowl above Lijiang, follows a lake that fills each July into a cold shallow sheet drawing black-necked cranes and black storks down from Siberia and Qinghai, then sinks away through the limestone bed each spring, leaving yaks grazing where water stood months before. It traces the Naxi families of Wenhai village who have watched this cycle for some three centuries, cut off without electricity until 1997 and without a paved road until 2003. You'll hear how fifty-six households eventually pooled their land rather than sell it off, building the Wenhai Ecolodge inside a restored Naxi courtyard house. Look down at the ground beneath your boots and guess, by the month, whether it is mud, grass or standing water.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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