Abstract: Spectral characters analysis of snow is an important base for snow identifying in mountainous area of Manasi River Basin, Xinjiang Province. Three field experiments were conducted for snow observation and spectral data collecting over study area. Spectral characteristic comparison between (1) snow and non-snow cover types, (2) new snow, polluted snow, aged snow, and blowing snow were performed firstly. Then, we analyzed the influence of pollutants, snow grain size, and volumetric water content on snow reflectance. The results show that although the spectral reflectance of aged snow, polluted snow, blowing snow, and snow and grass mixture has decreased at different degree in visible light band, they are still higher than the reflectance of non-snow cover type. In the near-infrared band, new snow, polluted snow, aged snow, blowing snow, snow and grass mixtures all appear with obvious spectral absorption peaks at 1020 nm、1250 nm, and obvious absorption valley at 1080 nm、1320 nm、2246 nm, which are obvious different from the spectral curve of non-snow cover type. In addition, the upward trend of spectral curve of polluted snow at visual light band provides an important foundation for its identification from other kinds of snow