The Cangshan Mountains are located about 2km to the west of the city of Dali. The Horse and Dragon Peak, the main peak, towers 4,122 meters about sea level and the mountaintop is covered with snow all the year round. Its slopes are covered with green trees and tea bushes.
The area produces over 100,000 kilograms of processed tea annually and is the home to the famous Yunnan White Tea. Fascinating brooks feature the mountains. Dali marble, Cliffside springs, remains of ancient glaciers and mists. Prized throughout China as a construction and ornamental material, Dali marble is peerless for hardness, coloration and interesting patterns.
It has been quarried in the area for over 1,300 years. Tourists to Dali in August-September can enjoy the view of imaginative cloud patterns floating from behind the 4,000-meter Yuju Peak in the Cangshan Mountains. These cloud patterns have evoked legends such as the one woven around a cloud said to resemble a woman longing for her husband. This interesting story, which has been handed down from generation to generation among the Bai people, is as follows.
Over 1,000 years agon in the days of Nanzhao, one day the beautiful daughter of the King of Nanzhao named A'feng princess, enjoyed palace life and fell in love with a young and brave hunter, named A'long. The couple eloped and hid on Yuju Peak. The King was enraged and had the young man arrested, killed and thrown into Erhai Lake.
The princess A'feng in turn died of grief and anger and became a white cloud. Since then between August and September each year this cloud appears over Yuju Peak, and longed for her husband to appear. The cloud, snow, peaks and brooks are the four marvelous spectacles. The Cangshan Mountains and the Erhai Lake form peculiar Dali scenery.