Earth Raises Peaks, Wind and Water Carve Canyons

Published Thursday, October 22, 2026

by Violet shen & Ming Chuong

Editor’s Note :

Travel is more than movement—it is a way of reading the world.

Cultural Express launches Hidden Pattern, a new column by USC professor Cheng-Ming Chuong and Violet Shen, former Director of Clinical Research at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Through words and images, they explore landscape, culture, nature, and science—revealing the traces of time, the path of evolution, and the hidden order of the world.

Introduction :

Endless deserts,Towering snow peaks. Snowmelt sustains oases and civilizations spanning millennia.

Traveling through northern and southern Xinjiang, two authors trace how wind and water sculpt the land—from canyons, wild plains, and poplar groves to Kashgar’s lanes, the Kizil Caves, Kanas Lake, and Hemu’s village homes.

This five-part series takes you across vast landscapes where cultures meet, life takes root, and ancient echoes still rise from the earth.

In September 2026, we left Los Angeles for Kashgar via Guangzhou. Nearly 30 hours later, we were approaching Asia’s heartland.

Below our window, rivers branched across the wilderness, catching the sunset like ribbons of gold.

Ahead, mountain ranges rose in waves, distant snow peaks glowing against the sky. Nearby, gullies scored bare slopes like wrinkles in the earth.

From snowy summits to stony deserts, shimmering rivers to silent valleys, the landscape held clues to hundreds of millions of years of change.

What raised these mountains and lowered these basins? What carved their gorges, cliffs, and barren hills?

Our journey began with questions inspired by the landscape unfolding beneath our window.

Three Ranges｜Two Basins

Deep in continental Asia, Xinjiang spans roughly 1.66 million square kilometers—about 46 times the size of Taiwan.

Its geography follows a striking pattern: three mountain ranges framing two basins.

From north to south lie the Altai Mountains, Junggar Basin, Tian Shan, Tarim Basin, and Kunlun Mountains. Together, they form the region’s vast, distinct framework.

This landscape took ages to emerge. Hundreds of millions of years ago, ancient landmasses, oceans, and island arcs occupied the region.

Volcanic activity and plate collisions gradually assembled them into Asia’s interior.

During the Mesozoic Era, rivers carried sand, gravel, and mud into basins.

These sediments accumulated in riverbeds and lakes, then compacted and cemented into sandstone, mudstone, and other sedimentary rocks.

Their layers preserve changing environments, fossils, and traces of ancient life.

In the Cenozoic Era, India’s northward-moving plate collided with Eurasia.

The force reached deep inland, lifting ancient ranges such as the Tian Shan and folding, tilting, and fracturing surrounding rock.

Flowing water, windblown sand, weathering, and rockfalls then sculpted the rising terrain.

The rocks’ colors offer further clues. Reddish browns often reflect iron oxides such as hematite; gray-green hues may reflect low-oxygen conditions and mineral composition.

Deposition, compression, uplift, and erosion produced today’s rippling bands of color.

Mountains block some moist air, while distance from the oceans keeps many basins dry. Yet snowmelt flows down valleys to sustain foothill oases.

Desert and water, drought and life coexist here. Xinjiang’s grandeur grows from these intertwined forces.

Crimson Cliffs｜ Carved Canyons

In Wensu County, Aksu, we boarded an off-road shuttle and jolted over gravel tracks and dry riverbeds into the canyons south of Tomur Peak in the Tian Shan.

Every bend revealed another formation. Distant red walls suddenly closed around us, narrowing the sky to a slender strip.

Inside, reddish-brown cliffs soared above staggered pillars and sharp ridges.

Fine grooves draped the rock like stone curtains, recording water’s repeated passage along weaker layers.

Walking on the boardwalk beneath those immense walls, we felt both their overwhelming sole and our own smallness.

The shuttle carried us deeper into another canyon. Darker red walls, pitted and furrowed, resembled relief sculptures endlessly reworked by the wind and water.

A boulder bore the name Wentian Valley—“Asking Heaven.” Beside it, cliffs reached toward the blue sky, as though the earth had lifted its silent face to question the heavens.

A camel caravan crossed the canyon floor, dwarfed by the immense rock formations. Suddenly, the scene acquired another depth: over geological ages, water and wind had worn these walls; over centuries, travelers had crossed the foothill plains, following water and oases. Nature’s time and human footsteps met before us.

Beyond the narrow passage, the view opened. Dark red ridges tilted into the distance; nearby hills mingled rust, gray-green, and pale yellow like a crumpled tapestry spread anew.

Wensu Grand Canyon was more than a gallery of unusual rock formations.

It was an open geological record: mountains rose, strata emerged, water found its course, and the elements kept carving. Every groove tells a story of an earth still changing.

Painted Hills｜Golden Groves

At dusk, we reached Wucaitan, or Rainbow Beach, in Burqin County, Altay.

Low sunlight washed the sandstone and mudstone hills north of the Irtysh River in red, yellow, brown, and gray-green. Color unfolded along the ridges like paint across an earthly palette.

Up close, grooves crossed uneven surfaces, steep walls alternating with hollows. Softer layers eroded faster; harder rock endured.

Windblown sand, rain runoff, and prolonged weathering reshaped their contours.

Xinjiang’s yardangs typically develop in dry, windy environments. Their mounds, elongated ridges, and channels stretch into the distance, resembling castles or fleets anchored on a barren plain.

Across the Irtysh, the southern bank offered another world. Autumn had turned the riverside woods gold, facing the bare, colorful hills.

One bank held exposed rock and wilderness; the other, golden trees and flowing water. A single river divided—and united—two landscapes.

We watched the evening light slowly fade. Wind and water sculpted the hills; the river nourished the trees.

Wucaitan’s deepest beauty lay beyond its colors: here, barrenness and abundance stood only a river apart.

Lakebed Layers｜Windcarved Castles

Urho Ghost City lies near Karamay, along the Junggar Basin’s northwestern edge. Isolated rock formations rise across the plain like towers, castles, and enormous beasts.

As we moved, their silhouettes shifted; a change of angle gave the same wall another face.

From afar, they resembled an abandoned city. Strong winds howled through channels and openings, producing eerie cries.

Swirling sand deepened the mystery that gave Ghost City its name.

These formations consist mainly of Early Cretaceous sandstone and mudstone. Ancient lakes once occupied the area, accumulating layers of sediment.

Later exposed to dry, windy conditions, the rocks underwent sand abrasion, runoff erosion, weathering, and occasional collapse.

Softer sections retreated while harder layers remained, sometimes forming overhanging caps and castlelike profiles.

The lakes vanished, leaving their sediments behind. Wind and rain then carved castles from the stone.

Standing among them, we saw lakebeds, rock, and drifting sand layered into a story of profound change.

Pterosaurs and other fossils found around Urho offer clues to Early Cretaceous ecosystems and once-thriving lakeshores.

Models of pterosaurs, stegosaurs, and oviraptors now stand among the barren formations, lending life to the silent scene.

Here, the transformation from ancient waters to desert wilderness becomes tangible.

Fiery Ridges｜Rippling Strata

Flying from northern to southern Xinjiang, we passed near Turpan.

Below, the Flaming Mountains rippled with exposed strata in reddish brown, gray-purple, and pale yellow.

Dense gullies ran down their slopes like tongues of fire rising from the earth.

Mainly sandstone and mudstone, these layers were compressed, folded, and uplifted before flowing water cut the closely spaced gullies and weathering reshaped their surfaces.

Strong sunlight intensified the red walls, making the ridges and channels resemble racing flames.

In Journey to the West, the Monkey King seeks Princess Iron Fan’s magical fan three times, clashing with her and the Bull Demon King.

The tale carried the Flaming Mountains into countless imaginations. Beneath our window lay a landscape shaped by geology; fiction gave it another life.

Where nature and story meet, a mountain range becomes part of our shared cultural memory.

Ancient Oases｜Modern Routes

Mountains guide water—and, in turn, human journeys. Ancient caravans followed oases along desert margins.

Water sources and settlements linked trade routes, carrying goods, skills, cultures and beliefs across the region.

Today, new technologies shape life on this land. Highways, railways, and airports connect distant towns.

Wind turbines turn above stony plains, solar panels gleam in the sun, and power lines cross the wilderness.

Along the northern Tian Shan’s oasis margins, shelterbelts and sand-stabilizing plants slow winds and protect fields, roads, and settlements.

Irrigation, water-saving drip systems, and soil improvement help sustain farming in an arid climate.

From cultivating snowmelt-fed oases to building roads and developing energy, people continue adapting to the landscape while leaving new marks upon it.

This journey brought different measures of time into focus. Over hundreds of millions of years, landmasses joined, mountains rose, and sediments settled in lakes.

Through long ages, wind wore down rock and rivers cut valleys. Across centuries, people followed water, settled in oases, and traveled along ancient trade routes.

The earth has never truly been silent. Its mountains, rocks, and rivers tell its story, inviting each traveler to consider how life takes root amid such vastness and desolation.

In the next installment of our five-part Xinjiang journey, we leave the mountains and canyons for the arid interior.

How did dry earth preserve ancient human remains? How does snowmelt sustain desert poplars and oases?

Through mummies, poplar forests, and ancient sites, we follow the traces of lives this land still holds.(Part 1 of 5)

Next Up | Dry Earth Preserves, Snowmelt Sustains