the people of altay prefecture in northwest china's xinjiang uygur autonomous region have kept fur skiing alive as a time-honored survival and hunting tradition for more than 10,000 years. cave paintings in the mountains of handegat, a township in altay, are considered to be evidence that skiing appeared in northwest china earlier than in northern europe. today, local elders still sing a mongolian long song which describes a story of their ancestors skiing and hunting. modern practitioners, including teenagers, remain passionate about this time-honored skill.
