Zhangjiajie: How to See China’s Stone Forest Without the Crowds
Thousands of sandstone pillars rise from the forests of north-west Hunan, in the landscape that inspired the floating mountains of Avatar. A guide to the park, the glass bridge and the best order in which to see them.
In the north-west of Hunan province, a plateau of quartz sandstone has been cut by water and frost into more than three thousand separate pillars. Many are over 200 metres high, with pine trees growing from their tops and sides. Mist fills the gorges between them. Zhangjiajie became China’s first national forest park in 1982, and the wider area, called Wulingyuan, has been a World Heritage site since 1992.
The film
The landscape was known to Chinese painters and to domestic tourists long before it was known abroad. That changed in 2009, when the makers of the film Avatar said that its floating mountains had been drawn from photographs taken here. In January 2010 one pillar, 1,080 metres above sea level, was renamed Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. Visitor numbers have risen ever since, and the park now receives tens of thousands of people on a busy day.
The park
The scenic area is large, and a ticket is valid for several days. Free buses run between its parts. There are four areas to know.
Yuanjiajie. The plateau from which the most famous pillars are seen, including the Avatar mountain and a natural rock bridge 350 metres above the valley floor. It is reached by the Bailong Elevator, a glass lift built on to the face of a cliff in 2002. At 326 metres it is the tallest outdoor lift in the world. This is the most crowded part of the park.
Tianzi Mountain. A higher viewpoint over a wide field of pillars, reached by cable car, and best at sunrise and after rain.
The Golden Whip Stream. A level path of seven kilometres along the floor of a gorge, with the pillars overhead. It is the most peaceful walk in the park and many visitors miss it.
The Ten-Mile Gallery. A side valley with a small tourist train.
Outside the park
The glass bridge. The bridge across the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon opened in 2016. It is 430 metres long and hangs 300 metres above the river, with a floor of glass panels. It is half an hour by road from the park, with a separate ticket for a fixed time.
Tianmen Mountain. This is a different mountain, on the edge of Zhangjiajie city. A cable car more than seven kilometres long climbs from the city centre to the top, where paths with glass floors are fixed to the cliff. Below the summit is Heaven’s Gate, a natural arch 130 metres high, reached by 999 steps or by escalators inside the rock.
How to avoid the crowds
Avoid the first week of May, the first week of October and the school holidays of July and August. Enter the park when it opens. Go up to Yuanjiajie first, before the tour groups, or late in the afternoon, and walk the Golden Whip Stream in the middle of the day. Stay in Wulingyuan town, at the eastern gate, and not in Zhangjiajie city, which is forty minutes away. Three days are needed: two for the park and one for Tianmen and the glass bridge.
The weather matters. On a clear day the pillars are sharp. In light mist they look as they do in the paintings. In heavy cloud nothing can be seen, so allow a spare day. April, May, September and October are the best months.
Getting there
Zhangjiajie has an airport with flights from the main Chinese cities, and since 2019 high-speed trains from Changsha, which take about two and a half hours. The old town of Fenghuang, on a river two hours to the south-west, combines well with it. For other landscapes of this kind, see our accounts of Yangshuo and of Fanjingshan in neighbouring Guizhou.