Snowboarding in Yabuli, the largest ski resort in China. [Photo provided to China Daily]

5 frozen routes

Harbin-Yabuli-Xue-xiang village

Yabuli hosts one of China's biggest ski resorts.

Visitors can use one card to experience 46 tracks spanning a total 50 kilometers, including three mountains.

It's best enjoyed from mid-November to late March.

Nearby Xuexiang village also gets seven months of snow. Shutterbugs can snap hundreds of houses buried with white stuff. Locals hang large red lanterns that often give glow to the snow.

Harbin-Daqing-Qiqihar

Daqing is a hot spot for hot springs.

Lianhuanhu offers Mongolian medicine baths. The Beiguo Hot Spring Resort hosts 83 ponds, making it the biggest of its kind in northeastern China.

Qiqihar's Zhalong nature reserve is home to nine of the world's 15 crane species, including red-crowned cranes. Winter visitors can watch hundreds of cranes take to the sky over the wetlands.

Longsha Zoological and Botanical Garden houses rare plants and animals from South America and Africa, such as blue wildebeests, zebras and ostriches.

The garden hosts ice sculptures of exotic fauna in winter.

Harbin-Mohe

Mohe is for adventurous types.

It's the country's northernmost county and one of its coldest places.

Sunrise comes at 9 am, and sunset arrives by 3 pm.

Beiji village sits a river away from Russia and is an ideal place to see the aurora borealis.

Visitors can experience polar day and night.

Christmas World contains a holiday-themed post office, gift shops and Finnish Santa Clauses. The place blends China's polar climate with Christmas culture.

Harbin-Mudanjiang

The route offers fishing on the Jingpo Lake and sacrifices before Manchu deities to bless your angling.

Tourists can get a feel for ancient Manchu hunters' lives.

The Diaoshuilou Waterfall freezes in winter.

Huoshankou national forest park is pocked with craters. Each runs about 100 meters deep and exceeds 100 meters in diameter, and is ringed by primitive forest.

Harbin-Yichun

Yichun is celebrated for its sunrises, rime and giant stone "mushroom" formations. All are striking when blanketed in snow.

White crystals glaze tree branches and stones for four months.

It renders an other world for cross-country skiing, curling or snow soccer.