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Destinations / Xinjiang / Duku highway season
China's most storied road runs 561 kilometres over the Tianshan and closes every winter. Here is how its season works, and how we plan around it.
Explore the guide ↓G217 · Dushanzi → Kuqa · 561 km
The Duku highway — G217 from Dushanzi to Kuqa — crosses the Tianshan from north to south in 561 kilometres, passing the Haxilegen pass and tunnel, the Bayanbulak grasslands, the big and small dragon lakes, and the Tianshan grand canyon. It is called China's most beautiful road for fair reasons: one day of driving runs through snow walls, spruce forest, steppe and red-rock canyon.
It is also a seasonal road. Winter snow and ice close the high sections for most of the year; crews begin clearing in March, and the full crossing opens when the pass is safe — historically mid-June, with some years earlier. It closes again in early October with the first hard snows. In 2026 the season ran from 1 June to the evening of 8 October; the year before, the same pattern held. Daily rules also apply inside the season: overnight traffic is barred, and weather can close sections temporarily at any time.
Stable shape, variable dates.
Roughly a mid-June-to-early-October window, announced by the transport authorities each spring. Any itinerary that crosses the range by this road must sit inside it — including the drive legs of journeys that end in Kuqa or begin in the Ili.
Exact opening and closing days move by a week or two. We confirm the year's dates against official announcements before flights are booked, and keep a plan-B routing (the northern road via Urumqi) for early-June departures.
July and August bring heavy domestic holiday traffic — spectacular scenery, patient driving. For quieter runs, the first three weeks of June and the second half of September are the connoisseur's windows.
If your dream dates fall outside the season, the journey still runs — by the northern routing — but the Duku's canyon-and-pass sequence is worth scheduling for. That is why our Ili-to-south journeys default to the season's edges.