Jiuzhaigou

LakesSichuan, Jiuzhaigou Valley National Park, China

August·Peaking now

Jun–Aug

The rains put the falls at their yearly maximum — Nuorilang, 320 metres wide, at full roar — and the full valley is open, right up to the Primeval Forest. Landslides can cut the approach roads.

Year-round Travertine dams the Y-shaped valley into its staircase of more than a hundred lakes, and the mineral springs are still building them. No private cars go in — everything runs on the shuttle buses.

Jiuzhaigou strings more than a hundred lakes down a single Y-shaped valley on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and the water in them is so clear that whole fallen tree trunks lie visible on the beds far below. The colour is chemistry rather than trick: springs here run through limestone and carry dissolved calcium carbonate, which settles as pale travertine and scatters sunlight back through the water in bands of turquoise, emerald, cobalt and amber. That same mineral built the valley itself — rockfalls and carbonate deposits dammed the streams into a staircase of lakes, terraces and wide calcified waterfalls, rather than the glaciers people often assume. The reserve climbs from about 2,000 to over 4,000 metres through the Min Mountains of northern Sichuan, and takes its name, "Nine Settlements Valley," from the Tibetan villages whose people still live on its slopes and hold the peaks and water sacred. UNESCO listed it in 1992. The valley wears a different face in each season, but autumn is its great performance, when crimson and gold forest doubles in the mirror of the lakes. Wooden boardwalks and quiet shuttle buses thread between the highlights: Five Flower Lake, where the sunken trunks glow beneath shifting blue-greens; Nuorilang, at 320 metres the widest waterfall in China; the broad travertine fan of Pearl Shoal; and Long Lake, the highest and largest sheet of water, ringed by snow. In winter the falls freeze into blue columns and the whole valley sinks into silence. The present calm was hard won: a magnitude-7.0 earthquake on 8 August 2017 tore open the embankment of Sparkling Lake and drained it, closing the park for repairs made with traditional glutinous-rice mortar instead of cement. Jiuzhaigou reopened fully in September 2021, its lakes and waterfalls once again as vivid as before.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Arrive at the opening bell — the marquee lakes fill by mid-morning, so ride straight to the top of the valley first and shoot the boardwalks before the buses catch up.
Mid-October is the colour peak, but a week swings it either way — arrive too early and the forest is still green, too late and the branches stand bare above the lakes.
The whole valley runs on shuttle buses linking its three arms — ride to the far ends, Long Lake and the Primeval Forest, first, then walk the boardwalks downhill toward the gate.
Never step into or touch the water — the travertine terraces are alive and still forming, and a single footprint can scar shelves that took centuries to build.
Long Lake sits above 3,000 metres, so the thin air bites — pace the upper stops, keep a warm layer for the sudden cold, and go easy after a long day walking.

Things to do

1
Look into Five Flower Lake's sunken forest
Five Flower Lake is the valley's colour showpiece, its surface shifting from turquoise to gold within a single pool. Lean over the boardwalk rail and you can pick out fallen tree trunks lying whole on the bright travertine floor, held as if in glass.
2
Stand below the Pearl Shoal falls
Below the wide travertine apron of Pearl Shoal, a sheet of water fans out and splinters into spray across the calcified rock. A boardwalk curls right to the foot of the falls, close enough that the mist drifts over the railing on a breezy day.
3
Follow autumn reflections along the boardwalk
In autumn the valley's beeches and maples burn crimson and gold, and the still lakes double them exactly. Walking the low wooden boardwalks that hug the shoreline, you move through the colour twice over — once in the trees overhead, once on the water beside you.
4
Reach Long Lake, the valley's highest water
Long Lake is the largest and highest sheet of water in Jiuzhaigou, held in a broad basin with snow-streaked peaks sealing off its far end. It has no outflowing stream — the water drains away underground — so its surface often lies glassy and still beneath the mountains.
5
Catch the peaks in Mirror Lake
Mirror Lake earns its name in the windless hours just after dawn, when it reflects the forest and surrounding peaks almost flawlessly. Come early, before the shuttle crowds and the first breeze arrive, and the water and its upside-down reflection can be genuinely hard to tell apart.
6
Watch the water spread across Nuorilang
A boardwalk runs right along the lip of Nuorilang, where the river slides off a long travertine cliff and drops in a broad, even sheet rather than a single plunge. Come in autumn and red-gold forest frames the falls; in deep winter the whole span freezes into a fringe of blue ice and hanging icicles.

Watch

Nearby

51 km

Huanglong

Sichuan