The Second Mount Emei Ice and Snow Festival will open on December 25 and runs through February 25, 2000, according to sources with the Sichuan provincial tourism administration.

The festival will feature a variety of activities including skiing, sightseeing, worshipping Buddha, expeditions, monkey- playing, and shopping.

The climax of the festival will be a bell-tolling ceremony on the highest peak on the eve of the new millennium, the sources said.

Guests at the festival will mainly come from major Chinese cities and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, they added.

Two expressways will be open to traffic by the time the festival starts, the sources noted.

The National Tourism Administration has designated the Mount Emei festival as one of the major ice and snow festivals in China, the sources emphasized.

Mount Emei is one of the four mountain ranges in China held sacred by Buddhists, and is located in Sichuan Province, about 155 kilometers southeast of Chengdu, the provincial capital.