Colette's Grand Detour

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is located in northwestern Hunan Province, and is one of China’s most spectacular landscapes. It is a dream-like scenic area with sandstone pillars that reach into the clouds, mist and thick forest. And it is the inspiration for the ‘Hallelujah mountains’ that feature as the stunning background of the Avatar movie.

The park covers over 11,000 hectares of forested quartz sandstone peaks, and forms part of the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992. It is renowned for its karst-like sandstone formations and there are over 3000 vertical pillars, some rising more than 200m into the sky and looking like they could tumble down at any moment. These towers have been shaped by 300 million years of tectonic uplift, weathering and erosion. Wind, frost and water have gradually cut through the rock, leaving free standing spires, bridges and natural arches. It reminds me of places like Bryce Canyon or Arches National Park in the US, except this is in dense forest, with trees and bushes clinging to the top of isolated sandstone pillars.

The park is huge and there is a lot to see and do. Getting around is also super confusing and there is limited English. It is extremely organised, but you have to get multiple modes of transport to get between places and it’s not always clear where to go and how to get there. So my recommendation for anyone visiting is to either join a group tour or hire a guide for the day. Otherwise you will spend more time figuring out how to get to the next stop on your route than enjoying the scenery. My guide had a plan and I just happily followed along.

We entered the park from Wulingyuan Town which is about 40 minutes from Zhangjiajie City and is the best place to base yourself. There are tons of hotels very close to the park entrance making it easy to get an early start ahead of the big tour groups. Our plan was to jump on a shuttle bus and head to Ten Mile Gallery first. This is a scenic valley lined with strangely shaped rocks that some say resemble people and animals. And is the first chance to glimpse the beautiful quartz-sandstone pillars the park is so famous for. They truly are incredible and feel very otherworldly.

Ten Mile Gallery is not actually ten miles long, this is just a poetic exaggeration. It stretches for about 5km and you can either walk or get the bizarre mini-train along the route (don’t worry, the modes of transport will get weirder). This was a great way to start the day and I was glad I could actually see the rock formations as the weather was pretty terrible.

We jumped onto another shuttle bus which takes you to the Bailong Elevator. This is a glass lift built into the cliff face and said to be the world’s highest outdoor elevator. The queues were getting quite long and to save time I opted to buy the ‘VIP’ lift pass which basically lets you skip the queue and was totally worth it as we had a busy day of sightseeing planned. It was only at the top of the cliffs, after the 90 second ride to the top that I realised just how bad the weather was. At times there was zero visibility. However, as the wind blew the mist away in swathes, we did get glimpses of the sea of stone towers we were surrounded by. It really is a magical place and I can imagine it is absolutely breathtaking on a clear day. I did however like how mystical the mist and clouds made it feel.

The walk from the elevator to the next shuttle stop is supposed to be one of the park’s most spectacular circuits and the loop of 3km takes about 2 hours at an easy pace. The Yuanjiajie Plateau is roughly 330m above the valley floor, and the circuit clings to the cliff edge, linking a series of look outs. It’s paved but the path does undulate and there are stairs in places. One of the highlights (that I could literally just make out the edge of through the clouds) is Hallelujah mountain. It stands along an isolated, and near the bottom of the pillar it narrows. With clouds surrounding it, it looks like it is floating. The other highlight (that thankfully I could actually see) is the First Bridge Under Heaven, a natural stone arc spanning 2 peaks, about 50m long and 5m wide.

There is a lot to see in the park, but because of the weather I decided I wanted to get the cable car back back down to a lower altitude in the hope of seeing more scenery and less cloud. This is where I feel like it would be confusing to be without a guide. We got a shuttle bus, then jumped on a mini-bus for about 40 minutes that steadily headed up the windy roads to an even higher altitude. And finally we got one more shuttle bus to the cable car entry point. The first few minutes in the cable car we were surrounded by cloud and my heart sank. But we suddenly emerged out into clear sky and had brilliant views of the landscape for 15 minutes. Thank goodness!

Ignoring the weather, and the slight frustration of having come so far, not to see the best views of Zhangjiajie’s famous towering peaks, I did still have a great day. The Ten-Mile Gallery and cable car were the highlights. And I continued to be baffled by the way China operates its nature tourism with lifts to the top of mountains, snack and gift shops at every stopping point and the ubiquitous herds of tour groups each following a brightly colored flag. If you plan to come here, be prepared to enjoy the scenery, in the local way. This means it will be extremely extremely busy, and sometimes you will be shuffling along the path behind 100s of people, rather than walking at a normal pace. And there will be a lot of noise, with tour guides shouting down their headsets instructing their groups where to go and when to meet. You have to drown all of that out and focus on enjoying the magnificent scenery. Don’t let what I have written above put you off going, as its a special place, just go prepared!