Dunes that walked onto the track
West of Zhongwei’s urban seat, the southeast edge of the Tengger Desert meets the Yellow River at Shapotou, in Shapotou District. Lattice dunes and dune chains stand on that edge. In 1954 the Baotou–Lanzhou railway had to cross the sand. Forty-two kilometres is one figure for the desert the line had to pass in those construction years—not folded into longer counts that appear elsewhere. On the Shapotou stretch, moving dunes rise to about 100 metres, driven by northwest winds and advancing about four metres a year, enough to bury the track bed and the rails. Mean precipitation here is 186.2 millimetres; mean evaporation, 1,913.8 millimetres.
The scenic area has ranked 5A since 2007. From the urban seat, one count makes it 16 kilometres west, where desert, the Yellow River, high ground, and oasis meet, and the railway crosses the grounds and divides a desert side from a Yellow River side. Another count, also in Shapotou District, says 15 kilometres and AAAAA. Between the sand and the water, a visitor still crosses that railway corridor.
Squares of one metre by one metre
Wheat-straw grids about one metre by one metre were built so the Baotou–Lanzhou railway could cross moving dunes where the Tengger meets the Yellow River. The protection runs in five belts. First is a sand-fixing fire belt, 10 to 15 centimetres of pebbles, loess, or cinders. Second is an irrigated shelterbelt. Third is a non-irrigated shelterbelt, entirely covered with those wheat-straw grids, half hidden in the sand and planted with sand-fixing plants. Fourth is a high barrier on the front line. Fifth is a fenced belt where the grass is left to recover.
A square is made by leaving one-third or one-half of each straw bundle standing, then moving sand from the centre onto the straw roots. On the ground the surface is a checkerboard of wheat straw, about one metre by one metre, part of each bundle still upright and the middle sand piled against the straw. The grids belong to the Baotou–Lanzhou railway. They were the surface that let the line cross dunes that had been advancing over the track. They are that third belt, planted as well as laid, with the pebble belt, the irrigated shelterbelt, the front barrier, and the fenced grass set in the same order around them.
Goat skins at the river wharf
The river craft at the wharf is a sheepskin raft: inflated goat skins on a wooden frame. It once carried people and goods along the upper and middle Yellow River; after bridges were built, the rafts were little used, though visitors still ride them on the Shapotou reach. Zhou Denan, who makes the rafts, works at the scenic area as a rafter.
At the wharf the rafts are fourteen goat skins in a five-four-five pattern. The boarding place is where the railway splits desert from water: skins tight on the frame, the current under the boards, and the dune edge at the back.