Way to Tibet – Tour to Yangpachen

Yangpachen is the name of a small town locates north-west of Lhasa, which famous for its geothermal resources. That’s why we chose visit this town in cold winter. Hot Spring, we were coming!

It snowed heavily all night, thus in the morning, we found ground, trees, houses and almost everything were covered with pure white snow, but the snowflakes kept floating down and down…

After breakfast, we started our journey to Yangpachen. During the road, we could see vaguely the Qinghai-Tibet elevated train track stretched ahead not far away. 


Out of Lhasa city, our car drove along the No.109 national road. The highest train track just stretched ahead of us. 


A series of massive snow mountain revealed their beauty along the way. Black rock surface appeared from where no snow coverage.

It spent us almost 3hours (twice than normal) on the road due to the snowy road condition. At noon, we finally reached Yangpachen. It stopped snowing, we could feel a faint sunlit shone on us. Actually, when we approached to the very area, we could see thin layer of steam surrounded the mountains.

90 km Northwest to Lhasa city, Yangpachen locates in Damxung county, Qiangtang Grassland. It is the junction point of Qinghai-Tibet High Road and Sino-Nepal High Road. The average temperature there is around 2.5℃, the annual air pressure is about 620mmHg.

Due to its unique geographical condition, Yangpachen is the first geothermal development experimental zone in Tibet. Now it has established geothermal power station, geothermal greenhouse and equipped hot spring facilities for tourists. 


Steaming geothermal lakes


It’s hard to believe that the geothermal resource just lies on the foot of a series snow mountains, with a height of over 4300 meters above sea level. 


Several springs are converging into hot rivers and hot lakes.


Yangpachen is the largest high-heat geothermal natural-steam field. Hot springs run out of the earth shell all year round. Within a radius of 40 km, the area is surrounded by the dim white steam. 


Hot spring sprang out of the earth shell through a narrow hole


A large hot spring pool

Before we enjoyed the hot spring bath, we took a short stroll around the geothermal power station nearby, which located on the vast north-Tibet grassland. During the winter time, grass there all wilted, but we could imagine how greenish and vivid it would be when spring comes. The snow mountain stood in the far distance was the grand Nyainqntanglha Mountain. With a height of 7200 meters, the mountain merged into a deep blue sky. 


Brown grassland, white snow mountains 


This is the small geothermal power station near the hot spring site.

Geothermal energy is pollution-free clean energy, people living here use this energy to yield electricity, much advanced than many inland cities. 

Wanna start your own trip to Lhasa? Come with us and enjoy your 6 Days Lhasa and Nagqu Experience