Hunan · The Fog Comes Out of a Power Station
Dongjiang Lake (东江湖)
A large reservoir in southern Hunan, and the short stretch of river below its dam where fog sits on the water on summer mornings. The fog is a by-product of the power station, and the fisherman in the photographs is there for the cameras.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A reservoir in the hills of southern Hunan, plus the river immediately below its dam, which is where almost all the photography happens |
|---|---|
| Where | Zixing, in Chenzhou prefecture, southern Hunan, near the Guangdong border |
| The two halves | The lake is large, island-scattered and reached by boat. The river below the dam, Xiaodongjiang, is narrow and is walked or driven along |
| The fog | Cold water released from deep in the reservoir meets warmer, damper air over the river, and condenses on contact |
| Listed | A 5A scenic area, the top tier of the Chinese national rating |
| Tickets | Sold as route packages that combine entry, shuttle bus and boat segments, so the price depends on how much of the area is included |
| Time needed | A morning for the fog. A full day if the lake and the side gorges are added |
| Getting there | Chenzhou is on the Beijing to Guangzhou high-speed line, then about an hour by road |
Why Go
Manufactured Weather, and a Hired Boatman
1. The fog is released, not forecast
Water at the bottom of a deep reservoir stays cold all year, because sunlight never reaches it and the layers do not mix. The dam here draws from that depth, so the river below it runs at something close to winter temperature in the middle of a Hunan summer. Warm, wet air sitting on cold water loses its moisture, and a layer of fog forms at the surface and stays there, sometimes for hours, while the air a few metres higher is perfectly clear.
That is why the photographs look the way they do: a flat white band lying exactly on the water with sharp green ridges above it. It is also why the season reverses ordinary expectation. The fog needs a large gap between air and water, so it is at its best in the warm months and weakest in winter, when the air is cold anyway. Anyone who comes in January hoping for mist has come at the wrong time of year.
This site keeps returning to the same question about Chinese water, which is how much of what looks like landscape was built. At Dujiangyan the answer is a works that steers a river without stopping it, at the Three Gorges Dam it is a wall, and at Libo it is a weir standing among natural cascades. Here the built thing produces a local climate rather than a shape in the ground.
2. The man with the net is part of the photograph
Look at the pictures again. He wears red against a grey and green scene, which is the one colour that reads at distance through fog. A red lantern hangs on the boat, lit, at dawn. The net is caught fully open, which lasts about half a second and takes several attempts to catch. Bamboo rafts lie moored in the foreground of other frames in exactly the place a landscape photographer would want a diagonal. None of this is an accident, and the casting is arranged, on a schedule, for the people standing on the bank with tripods.
Saying so is not a complaint. Plenty of visitors arrive expecting to have stumbled on an old man making a living the way his grandfather did, and then feel cheated when they see forty photographers on the platform behind them. The honest version is more interesting. This is a piece of scenery commissioned by the people who come to photograph it, on a river that only behaves this way because of a hydroelectric scheme. Almost everything in the frame was put there on purpose, including the weather.
The pylons give it away. They stand on the ridgelines in several of these pictures and one of them is reflected in the water, and they are not an intrusion on the scene. They are the reason for it.
The catch. The fog is a morning event and it does not perform to order: a cold snap, a breeze or a dry spell can flatten it, and it can be gone by mid-morning when it does appear. The viewing bank is narrow and in season it fills with tripods well before dawn. The lake itself is a slow, expensive boat trip that many visitors skip, and the ticketing is packaged by route, which means the cheapest ticket leaves out the parts most people came for. Chenzhou is also a long way from anywhere else worth a day.
Orientation
The Lake, the Dam and the River Below
The geography is simple once the two halves are separated. Above the dam is the reservoir: large, branching, dotted with wooded islands, and crossed by tour boats from a terminal. Below the dam is Xiaodongjiang, a narrow river running through a wooded gorge with a road along it and viewing platforms at intervals. The fog belongs to the river.
Most visitors drive or shuttle down to the river bank before sunrise, watch for an hour or two, and then decide whether to spend the rest of the day on the lake or in one of the side gorges. The side gorges have waterfalls and stepped paths and are pleasant without being remarkable. The lake is a long boat ride whose appeal depends on the weather.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Be there before the light
The fog is at its thickest before sunrise and it can thin quickly afterwards. Arriving at a civilised hour usually means arriving after the event.
Sleep close to the river
Staying in Chenzhou city adds an hour in the dark at each end. There is accommodation much nearer the water.
Check what your ticket actually covers
The packages differ in whether the boat and the side gorges are included, and the difference is large. Work out which segments matter before buying at the gate.
Bring a warm layer in summer
Standing beside a river running at winter temperature, before dawn, is colder than the forecast suggests.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| May to September | The fog is at its most reliable, because warm wet air is sitting on water that is still running cold out of the dam | The warm months are also the busy ones, and the bank is crowded before sunrise |
| April and October | Still workable, with fewer people on the platforms | Mornings are hit and miss. The first week of October is a national holiday |
| November to March | Quiet, clear and comfortable for the lake and the gorges | Little or no fog. The whole reason most people come is out of season |
Context
What the Dam Did to This Valley
The reservoir was built for electricity and water control, and it drowned a long stretch of valley to do it. That is the ordinary arithmetic of Chinese hydropower in the second half of the twentieth century, repeated across the south on hundreds of rivers, and it is the same arithmetic set out at a much larger scale on the page for the Three Gorges Dam. Farmland and villages went under, the water supply and the grid improved, and a generation later the flooded valley was rebranded as scenery.
The tourism came second and it came out of the engineering. A deep reservoir behind a high dam produces cold bottom water; releasing that water into a warm valley produces fog; fog on still water in front of green hills produces a photograph people will travel for. Nobody planned that chain when the dam was designed. The scenic area exists because someone noticed the side effect and built a business on it.
It is worth holding this next to the older Chinese idea of a famous view, which earns its reputation over centuries of people writing about it. Here the sequence ran backwards: the engineering came first, the view second, the reputation third, and all of it inside living memory. The fishermen on the boats are performing a tradition on a river that, in its present form, is younger than they are.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · about 400 km west
Langshan (崀山)
Red sandstone towers and natural bridges in the far southwest of the province.
Spot · about 480 km north
Yueyang Tower and Junshan Island (岳阳楼)
The classical viewing tower on Dongting Lake, and a very different Hunan.
Where to Base
Chenzhou (郴州)
Chenzhou is a mid-sized industrial and mining city on the main rail line between Changsha and Guangzhou, and it has no particular claim on a visitor beyond being the arrival point. It does have frequent high-speed trains from both directions, which makes the lake much easier to reach than its remoteness suggests.
The useful decision here is where to sleep rather than what to see in the city. Beds near the river turn a three-in-the-morning start into a reasonable one, and that single choice decides whether the trip works.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · one morning
The fog on the river
Down to the bank before first light for the fog and the casting, with the option of the side gorges afterwards.
On site · half day
The lake by boat
Out among the islands from the terminal above the dam, which is a slower and much emptier experience than the river below it.
Guided · 4 days
Hunan water and rock
The reservoir, the fog and the sandstone country to the west, joined up so that the engineering and the landscape are read together.
Come in a warm month, sleep near the water, be on the bank before the light, and know what you are looking at. The fog is a by-product of a power station, the fisherman is working for the photographers, and the pylons on the ridge belong to the same story rather than spoiling it. Understood that way it is a genuinely strange and memorable morning. Expected to be an untouched fishing village, it will disappoint.
Southern Hunan, Timed Properly
The only difficult part of this trip is the timing, and it is the part most itineraries get wrong. Tell us your dates and our local team will put you within reach of the river the night before, get you to the bank before the light, and build the rest of the day around what the weather actually does.