This February, I had the pleasure of joining a number of other media professionals on a trip around northern Xinjiang.

Perhaps the only thing to match the cold of the northern Xinjiang winter is the warmth of the locals. You quickly forget your frozen fingers and toes when met with a simple Xinjiang smile.

Some might say Xinjiang is a diamond in the rough, as this jewel in the crown of northwest China has yet to catch the eye of many a visitor. But my, how she sparkles!

We spent long hours on the road, for vast indeed is this new frontier. Her virgin wilds are largely unspoiled by human touch, with the only blemish in her snowy blanket the occasional tracks of a fox on the prowl. At times the great white expanse blurred the very horizon before us, the clouds above and snowdrifts below swirling together into a marshmallow mess, a hypnotic emptiness of rare beauty.

We took one chairlift after another up the many mountains of Altay, and we made our way down with varying degrees of success—some in a flash, some in a tumble, and some with knuckles whiter than the slopes themselves. Yet as the days drew to a close, our buttocks and egos bruised in equal measure, our smiles were as wide as the Taklamakan.

There is something special—spiritual even—about skiing in Xinjiang. Only you and the mountain, its primal power radiating outward. Just a few strides from the ski lift, and you are swallowed up by the wilderness. On more than one occasion I paused and even pondered my own mortality there on the mountainside, and not merely due to my questionable coordination.

And it's not just the mountains here that can make a man philosophical.

It's looking down over Hemu Village as the sun first dares to peek over the surrounding ranges, faint wisps of smoke curling skyward from the log cabins below as your eyelashes turn to icicles.

It's watching horses race atop frozen Kanas Lake, their skin coated with a layer of frost, tattooed with snowflakes. The crowd hoots and hollers as the riders near.

It's sitting down around the dinner table to break naan and sip tea. Here, it's not just the famous big plate chicken, and at some stage you may need to loosen your belt, but never your purse strings.

It's even gazing upon the mummies in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum, their bodies become mummified due to the dry climate of the desert. Thousands of years after they entered their slumber, they remain peaceful, even elegant, and hauntingly human. We lower our voices to hushed tones, almost afraid to wake them.

This ancient birthplace of skiing, reborn and rediscovered, is given new life as it is seen through new eyes.

And though it was the fourth time for me to lay my own eyes on the hidden treasure that is Xinjiang, it never ceases to dazzle. I trust it will not be the last.

Simon Robinson is from New Zealand and is a foreign expert at Xinhua News Agency.

Producer: Xiao Chunfei

Supervisors: Ding Tao and Jie Wenjin

Planners: Jie Wenjin and Cheng Li

Reviewers: Cheng Li and Hou Weili

Editor: Zhang Shijie