高原的魅力远不止于地理学家口里的啧啧赞叹，许多自然胜景也同样会让我们寻常人感到震颤：新青峰脚下纵列数十道的冰川，长达几十公里，厚过30米，却仍然不能熄灭从中喷射而出的火山沸泉，冰火浴生的故事在那里上映了数万年；五老峰则从高达百米的冰川里下泻的瀑布水沫中飞扬，其气势和声涛胜过我们熟知的任何岩石瀑布。贫瘠的自然环境还催生了令人叹服的生态习性。比如不能择枝而栖，甚至连在草丛安家也成奢望的飞禽，只能在鼠洞里屈就，而其宿费就是在寒冬时节必须衔枝而归，这种鸟鼠同穴的景象只有在世界屋脊才能随处可见。在这里，就连植物也一反常态——太阳升起时植物的毛孔紧闭，以免蒸发导致水分亏损；夜间则利用白天叶片收集的微弱的太阳能进行光合作用，其情形与太空如出一辙。

The charm of the plateau goes far beyond the acclamations of the geoscientists; natural landscapes can also move ordinary people. The dozens of rows of glaciers at the foot of Xinqing Peak run several dozen kilometers long, with a thickness of over 30 meters, yet the volcanic hot springs still erupts from them, and the story of fire in the ice has been lasting for tens of thousands of years. The Wulao Peak flies upward in the splashing of the waterfalls running down from the glaciers several hundred meters high, the momentum surpassing any rock waterfalls we have heard of before. The barren natural environment gave birth to amazing ecological habits. For instance, the birds who have no tree branches, or even plants, in which to make a nest have to compromise and to take shelter in rat holes, for which they must find some branches in winter time. This phenomenon in which birds and rats make home in the same hole is seen everywhere on the roof of the world, but also only here. Here even plants are abnormal in that they close their pores when the sun rises lest evaporation lead to dehydration, while at night they go through photosynthesis using the weak solar energy they have gathered during the daytime with their leaves.

走过高原，才发现荒凉之美的含义。无数的冰川雪岭储备了难以计数的淡水，还哺育了诸如长江、黄河等著名的江河。乔戈里峰残冰造就了幽深险峻的“喀喇昆仑大道”，喜马拉雅的冰舌侵入丛林，还有那星罗棋布的湖泊，不仅收纳了周边的山影天色，还生出各式各样的造型——或宛如城堡的盐花，或状若堆雪的浪花，垒积在岸滨，又添艳丽。

Going through the plateau, one can find the meaning of the beauty in its bleakness. Numerous glaciers and snow-capped ridges have reserved infinite fresh water and nurtured a number of famous rivers, such as the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers. The incomplete ice on Mt. Qogir (also known as K2) has formed the precipitous and serene “Karakoram thoroughfare,” and the ice tongues of the Himalayas invade the jungles. Then there are lakes scattered all over the plateau like stars in the sky, which not only absorb the reflections of surrounding mountains and the sky but also produce various forms, some salt efflorescence in the shape of a fortress or spoondrifts like snow piles on the lake shore, adding brilliance to the plateau.