Snow means work, not fun, for researchers

For one group of scientists, winter does not bring exciting prospects of skiing or riding snowmobiles.

Instead, they spend weeks trekking through the snow covered wilderness of the Tianshan mountains in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

A team of nine researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography recently completed a 12-day field study of snow in the area, which features a vast variety of snowcapped peaks, glaciers, alpine meadows, canyons and lakes. It was one of three planned for snow season.