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Chengdu residents catch rare glimpse of nearby snowy peaks

Did you know Chengdu is surrounded by snow-capped mountains? You might know it to be true, but you might have never seen it with your own eyes. And seeing is believing, or so they say.

Chengdu resident and GoChengdoo reader David DuByne sent in this photograph along with the following text:

I woke up early one morning during the holiday and was amazed to see tall snow mountains off of my balcony. These shots were taken at 7 a.m. off of my 24th-floor balcony facing west along Jiangxi Jie.

This goes to show how much pollution there really is in Chengdu from the vehicles transiting the city. From now on take notice that when there is a holiday and the city empties out we have sunny days. After the holiday, the cars and gray skies return like clockwork.

I hope [this] opens a few eyes to the pollution situation here and it's a wonderful thing to see see high mountains in the distance.

As we noted on Monday, 68,000 people left Chengdu via long-distance passenger bus Sunday alone. That figure paled in comparison to the estimated 500,000 Chengdu city residents who went out of town on Thursday, according to figures from Chengdu's transportation department.

On Saturday night, Chengdu residents were also treated to a rare clear view of a very bright full moon, just in time for the Mid-Autumn (or "moon-viewing") festival.

If you've caught something special with your camera that you'd like to share with GoChengdoo readers, send it to us!

Comments

• • hedgepig
    October 8, 2009

  • wow! it's like the mountains are floating... or it's a strange cloud formation... or Mr. DuByne is handy at photoshop.

• • Philou
    October 8, 2009

  • it must be a joke...

• • francesen
    October 9, 2009

  • I first thought it looks like clouds too, but I guess the snow is bathed in morning sunlight.. lovely... Still looks like they're poking out from a layer of pollution though.. kind of unreal... Wish we could see it every day.

• • kuma
    October 9, 2009

  • It's beautiful but the relatively clear skies were caused by heavy rain. The exodus of cars only has a minimal impact (the emissions caused by cars linger in the air for a few days). Maybe Chengdu needs Beijing-type driving restrictions?

• • Fake?
    October 11, 2009

  • Anyway to know if this picture is real or not? I checked Google Earth and it makes me believe this is fake: the mountains are pretty far in the background. I think there's no way they look like those on the pictures.

    I would love to be wrong...
    It could be a very interesting light effect in which case i want to see more pictures!

• • come on
    October 12, 2009

  • chengdu is surrounded by huge mountains, what's so hard to believe about this photo? haven't you ever seen mountains in the distance?

• • David DuByne
    October 12, 2009

  • For those of you non believers of the pics I have a one minute video and 28 more shots. Of course I submitted the best, but I have others. By the way did you watch any local Chengdu Chinese TV broadcasts? They also aired a report about the unusual event. I do wish this were a regular event, but rush hour traffic exhaust and factory emissions are far more regular than weather fronts moving through during a holiday.

• • invisible
    October 16, 2009

  • Apparently you could see the snow mountains more often before the boom, and even Dufu was describing it in his poetry when staying in town.

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