Soil in Salt

@Sidonie: Yep. There's this huge salt-deposit "river" that "flows" down that mountain. It's naturally divided up into small ponds where water collects and then spills over into the ponds downhill of it. Every so often you see the odd tree or plant growing out of what looks like pure hardened salt and calcium. I have a couple of pictures in which the roots of trees are just totally encrusted with minerals, that it's amazing that plants can grow in those places at all. It just happened to snow the day I was there so it just added to the mystique of the place... It's one of the most surreal places I've ever been to. It's called Huanglong, by the way, and it's another very picturesque place in Sichuan.