Wandering in the rivers of the Ali Plateau

The beauty of harmony and balance outlined by the combination of strength and softness has always been highly praised.

"Huainanzi. Spiritual Training" says: "Hardness and softness complement each other, and all things take shape." It means that hardness and softness are integrated into one, and their beauty lies in infinite changes. All things become visible in the invisible.

The Ali Plateau is always demonstrating the beauty of both hardness and softness. The snow-capped mountains are majestic and upright, which is hardness. The lakes under the snow-capped mountains are like mirrors, and the rivers are winding, quiet and beautiful, which is softness. The best embodiment of the softness of the Ali Plateau is the river flowing on the broad plateau.

Ali has always been known as "the summit of a thousand mountains and the source of ten thousand rivers". The four major rivers flowing through Ali are different from many inland rivers in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau that never see the sea. The Shiquan River, Xiangquan River, Maquan River and Kongque River flow northwest, southwest and southeast into India and Nepal respectively, becoming the upper reaches of the Indus River, Sutlej River, Brahmaputra River and the Ganges tributary Ghogra River, and finally flow into the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.

▲Ali’s river is shaped like a braid. Photo by Xiang Wenjun

The rivers in Ali all have one common feature: they all originate from the glaciers of the Gangdise Mountains and the Himalayas, and then flow downward through the basin, often forming free meanders with thousands of twists and turns, or forming wandering rivers (braided rivers) like braids in straight river channels, or forming scattered turbulent rivers on gentle slopes.

The winding serpentine river, the braided river and the scattered turbulent river appear particularly colorful against the backdrop of the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

In the early morning, the plane took off from Ali Airport. The weather was not very good. Thick clouds piled up all around, and the sky was gloomy and rainy. On the eastern horizon, between the earth and the clouds, the sun rose from the gap, and a ray of light reflected on the Shiquan River, brightly outlining the shape of the flowing water.

The river meanders like a snake, the oxbow lake is shaped like a crescent moon, and the entire river is like a ribbon fluttering under the stage lights, winding brightly in the sky.

▲The Ali River flows under the snow-capped mountains. Photo by Xiang Wenjun

Shiquan River, also known as Senge Zangbo, originates from the glacial lake on the northern slope of Mount Kailash. Shiquan River flows from southeast to northwest, and merges with another important tributary originating from the northern foot of the Himalayas in my country near the Zhaxigang Border Station in my country, and then enters the Kashmir region controlled by India, becoming the longest river in South Asia - the Indus River.

The Indus River is 3,180 kilometers long, 405 kilometers of which are in China, with a drainage area of ​​27,450 square kilometers. It flows through India and Pakistan before entering the Indian Ocean. Legend has it that the Tongtian River in the novel "Journey to the West" is the Shiquan River.

After passing through Shiquanhe Town, Senge Zangbo flows into Shiquanhe Basin. After entering the basin, the river suddenly loses its sense of direction. As the slope decreases, the river's downcutting effect weakens, and the lateral erosion increases, the river, which was originally in a straight line, begins to bend. In addition, due to the effects of inertia and centrifugal force, the river channel becomes more and more tortuous, and eventually becomes a meandering river.

During the development of meanders, the two adjacent concave banks get closer and closer, and eventually they are directly connected. This is the common straightening of meanders. The remaining river channel after being cut off forms an oxbow lake.

▲Meandering Flow. Photo by Xiang Wenjun

From the aerial photos, it can be seen that after entering the Shiquan River Basin, the Senge Zangbo River not only becomes more and more curved, but also drifts continuously from north to south, leaving behind a large number of oxbow lakes and abandoned river channels.

Here, the river is like a lithe dancer, moving westward in one spinning step after another, leaving its graceful figure on this land as well as the traces of millions of years of evolution.

In addition to meanders, another type of wandering river, namely braided rivers, is also commonly developed on the northern Tibetan Plateau.

If the snake-bend river is a graceful dancer, the braided river is a master of color and line creation. The riverbed of a braided river is often relatively straight, but steeper. Due to the large number of mid-shoals and sandbars, the riverbed is obviously bifurcated. The water flows through the bifurcated river channel, sometimes separating and sometimes converging, resembling a braid.

The largest tributary of Senge Zangbo, Gar Zangbo, is a perfect wandering river before it merges into Senge Zangbo. Gar Zangbo is also called "Garqu" and "Gartangqu", which means "barracks river" and "tent river" in Tibetan. It originates from the western foot of Mount Gangrinboqi, the main peak of Gangdise Mountain, flows northwest through Menshi and Tangkanab, and merges into Senge Zangbo near Zhaxigang. Gar Zangbo is 196 kilometers long and flows northwest between Gangdise Mountain and Aila Riju Mountain. The river is straight and the valley is wide and flat. After reaching Kunsha Wetland in the north, there are many branches, shoals and river islands, forming a spectacular wandering river (braided river).

▲ Braided river. Photo by Xiang Wenjun

Seen from the air, the braided river formed by the Gar Zangbo River is a perfect combination of lines and colors.

Since the Mesozoic Era, there have been abundant lake and river sediments deposited here. Due to the environmental changes at the time of formation, these sediments present a rhythmic change of red as the main color, with brown-red, brown-yellow, and gray-green as the additional colors.

The river washes the land, the wind and sand erode the mountain, exposing the colorful rock layers, and the whole river valley is colorful. The flowing water freely paints on this colorful land, wandering around in the river channel, and a beautiful picture appears before our eyes. In winter, the half-frozen river, the remaining snow, the dark dead grass, the white gravel shoal, all kinds of colors and lines are randomly combined, just like the genius creation of the Impressionist master with the earth as the canvas.

▲ Satellite image of Senge Zangbo (Shiquan River) from 4,200 meters, with river tracks left by the river's constant diversion and drift. Image/Mapbox Satellite Hybrid Image

On both sides of the river, there are gullies spreading like branches. From the satellite image, the black streams and the brown clusters of plants, the yellow-brown rocks and the gray-white sandbars are in harmony with each other, just like a Chinese painting master, sometimes with a long straight line, sometimes with a cone-like sand painting, and sometimes with a trembling brush. A Chinese landscape painting with appropriate shades, virtuality and reality, and density emerges in his hooks, textures, dots and dyes.

▲The bottom of the picture shows a tributary of Senge Zangbo River, and the top shows tree-like gullies formed by glacial meltwater. The black part is plants. Mapbox satellite hybrid image at 4,600 meters. Image/Mapbox satellite hybrid image

The Senge Zangbo and the Gar Zangbo flow through roughly the same environment and have roughly the same river form. Before they merge at Zhaxigang, they each form another type of river to the west of Shiquanhe Town and to the east of Ngari Kunsha Airport. This is a turbulent river.

Turbulence is a flow state of flowing water. When the flow rate is very small and the terrain is a slightly inclined slope, the flowing water is divided into countless small trickles that spread out from one side, flow on the slope, and then converge again at the other end.

▲The water marks left by the tributaries of Shiquan River on the land and the wonderful patterns formed by the growth of plants along the water system. Mapbox satellite hybrid image at a 4200-meter perspective. Image/Mapbox satellite hybrid image

The river lost its main channel in an instant, and countless small rivers moved irregularly, intertwined and entangled with each other, with tortuous and chaotic trajectories. The turbulent area formed by the Senge Zangbo River on the west side of Shiquanhe Town is about 10 kilometers long, 8 kilometers wide, and covers an area of ​​about 80 kilometers. Large turbulent areas are also formed on the south and north sides of Geji County.

The turbulent area formed by the Gar Zangbo River to the north of the Ngari Kunsha Airport is more than 200 square kilometers, and the turbulent area formed near Gar County is also 40 square kilometers. In addition, the triangle where the two rivers meet in the south of Zhaxigang Township also shows a scattered flow state.

▲The turbulence formed by Shiquan River in the west of Gar County, from the perspective of 4200 meters in Mapbox satellite hybrid image. Image/Mapbox satellite hybrid image

Ali has always been known as the "roof on the roof of the world". Its average altitude is above 4,600 meters. It is located in a high-altitude desert and semi-desert environment. It is also a well-known low-temperature center and drought center on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Such an environment is not suitable for human survival, but it is these colorful rivers that break free from the constraints of the terrain and flow here in a state of overflow and dispersion, so that the originally dry land is nourished by stable flowing water, which makes the valley here lush with water and grass, and becomes a rare "oasis" for local herdsmen.

Along the Senge Zangbo and Gar Zangbo, such "oases" have become the "wet center", "biological paradise" and "source of civilization" of the "arid zone" of Ali. In the morning, strolling in the deep wetlands outside Shiquanhe Town, flocks of black-necked cranes, red-crested pochards and bar-headed geese fly up and down from time to time. With abundant water and grass, it naturally becomes a natural pasture. This is the largest and best transition pasture in the spring and autumn in the Ali region.

▲The wonderful pattern formed by the frozen river lake at the intersection of Shiquan River and Langqu River. Mapbox satellite hybrid image at 4200 meters. Image/Mapbox satellite hybrid image

All rivers in Ngari originate from Mount Kailash. It is actually quite puzzling that Mount Kailash, which is not at the highest altitude in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, has become a holy place for the four major religions. In particular, both Hinduism and Jainism are mainly spread in India on the southern slope of the Himalayas. When standing on the Indian plains, the first thing you see is the peaks of the Himalayas, and you cannot see Mount Kailash directly. How did the ancients know that there was a Mount Kailash behind the Himalayas?

The only plausible reason is the river. Mount Kailash and the Gangdise Mountains where it is located gave birth to rivers, which became the source of many large rivers in South Asia. Perhaps the ancient prophets followed these rivers, traced their sources from different directions, crossed the Himalayas, and finally found this snow-capped mountain that gave birth to the great rivers, and regarded it as the "center of the world."

Snakes, turbulent rivers, braided rivers...Ngari's rivers have various shapes and rich colors. Nature is the best artist here, and their creations are far beyond human imagination. The source of civilization also comes from here, from every drop of water from the glaciers here, every river and stream, and all the creatures and things they have created.

▲The strange pattern formed by the turbulent flow of Kangguqunbu, a tributary of the Garzangbo River, and the river lake. The upper part is the river lake, and the black part is the plant. Mapbox satellite hybrid image at a 4600-meter perspective. Image/Mapbox satellite hybrid image