Kanas Lake

The Kanas Lake  is a magical and appealing place for all ages. Maybe the Kanas is an enchanting Mongolian name which means "a beautiful, abundant and mysterious lake in a gorge". The travelers called it as 'Switzerland in East or Camerists' Heaven'. The altitude of Kanas Lake is 1374 meters, the length of north-south is 24km, the average width is 1.9 km, the biggest depth is 188.5 meters, the area is 45.73 sq km.

Many elements make up of the beauty of the lake. They are forest of larches, red pines, spruces, firs, birch; glacier on the snow-covered mountain; grasslands and pastures along rivers, rare wild animals and folk flavor.

Crouching Dragon Bay and Moon Bay are two must-see places along the river flowing into the Kanas Lake.

The Crouching Dragon Bay, close to the Kanas Lake, on the way of river coming out from erect peaks, lush and dense forest, deep and swift canyons.

With a stretch of virginal forest, the Crouching Dragon Bay shapes like a cauldron, so that it is called Cauldron-bottom Lake by the local people. The Crouching Dragon Bay has a water area of about 90,000 sq meters. The Kanas River slowly flows by, its color is pure blue and clean and soft waves are floating, with the scenery of rivers and mountains behind being reflected on the water. The ait in the bay looks like a giant crouching bay. It is said that long, long ago, a giant dragon once played with water by mounting the clouds and riding the mist. All of sudden, the weather changed drastically, the ice sealed and snow froze in a moment, for which the giant dragon was frozen stiff here, thus being named the Crouching Dragon Bay. There is an ideal place for fishing (once a 2 meter-long Big Red Fish was catched).