Wuquan Mountain Forest Park

Wuquan Mountain is located in the south of Lanzhou city, the capital of Gansu province. It covers an area of 267,000 square meters, with highest peak of 1600 meters above the sea level. With a history of more than 2000 years old, Wuquan mountain is famous for its five-hole spring and ancient construction of Buddhism on the upper hill.



The world “wuquan” means the “five springs” in Chinese. Back to Xihan period(202 B.C), a military general named Huaqubing was fighting against the Xiongnu people in this area, following the order from the emperor. When his army passed by Lanzhou city, they rested under a mountain called Gaolan mountain. After days of trekking, everyone is tired and thirsty. However, the water was no where to be found. Nor could they drink or cook meals. Things seemed a little out of control.

At this time, general Huo still was very calm. He just took up the horse whip and whipped it five times against the hillside. Short while after, five streams of clear spring flew out from the holes. Ganlu spring is the highest spring of all. It never runs dry, even in drought season. Therefore, people started calling it as the Wuquan Mountain.

There are three routes to climb the mountain, which are east, west and middle, each one has its own scenery and highlight. My route is starting from the west. The first tourist spot is called “Green Quiet Garden”, with plum blossom cave, some corridors with vines above, and a octagonal pavilion. If you want to have more fun, they have this awesome underground amusement park. Each spot on the mountain carefully named, for instance, crescent moon pavilion, wisdom spring, and others.

The temples on the mountain can be traced back to Tang and Song period, some of them were ruined during the war. What we see today mostly were built in Qing dynasty, such as Chongqing Temple, Mani temple, Wofo Hall, Dizang temple, etc. Most ancient building are in the middle hillside. Climbing the mountain along the middle route, not long before you can see the majestic ancient construction groups. Besides the buildings, there are east and west dragon mouths, actually both of them are springs. Taking a walk in this area would bring so much peace to the body and mind.



Standing on the Kuangguan Building, you can get the best view of Lanzhou city. There is a 10 meters deep cave with a pond of spring at the bottom. This is not an ordinary spring, it is called the baby-touching spring. According to the legend, fumbling under the sring, those who get stones would have baby boy, and others get tiles would have baby girl. Even today, there are still people coming into the cave and praying their luck with having kids. Clibing a little higher and you would reach the highest building of Wuquan mountain-Qianfo Pavilion. It is very dangerous to climb on but when you make it, the views is totally worth the effort.