Yulong Snow Mountain, which used to be a brilliant white, is now mostly gray, worrying those who study it and see it as a sort of canary in a coal mine.
Reporting from Lijiang, China - If you want to see a glacier melt with your bare eyes, try Yulong Snow Mountain, an 18,000-foot peak in southern China's Yunnan province.
On this early December morning, the mountain is etched against the technicolor sky in shades of gray -- definitely more gray than white. Naked boulders of limestone and daubs of shrubbery protrude from the shallow snow cover.
At a scenic overlook on the way up, tourists leave their woolly hats in the tour bus when they hop out to take photographs.
Even with its bald spots, the mountain is a picture postcard. But scientists worry about the way it is changing."Look here," said Du Jiankuo, a 25-year-old Chinese scientist, raising his telephoto lens to a gray patch. "You can see where we lost another big chunk of ice."
Completion @ The Los Angeles Times
November 2007, I was fortunate to be on vacation in the Kumming area; I got to visit Dali and Lijiang for 14 days. A wonderful adventure to be sure.
When I came upon this article this morning and looked at the photo of the Yulong Snow Mountain, to say that I was shocked would be an understatement.
Follow the link and take note of the photo. Compare what you see there with the pictures I took with my Canon A640 on a beautiful, crisp morning in November, 2007.
To me, it doesn't look to be the same place. In the L.A. Times photo the mountain looks sick.
Really sick.
And, presently there are no mountain doctors available.
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