Day 21: Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Saturday 11th October 2025
Layers, Zhangjiajie National Forest Park
35°, misty to start, fine, 26° up the mountain
NZ$1 = Y4
Y1=NZ$0.25
Up at 8am, got ready, had breakfast in our room and down to the lobby at 9am.
Today we had booked a trip to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. We booked through a website called Klook ( who then booked a local tour operator ) and we had booked a private tour ( just the 2 of us ) with an English speaking guide ( Gabby ) at a cost of $607 for the 2 of us. This package included a car and driver to get to the Park, Gabby for the whole day, entry tickets and all buses etc. We had looked at just going by ourselves but we had seen many people who had got lost/confused when navigating through the park, so we were happy to pay the extra for a guide. The tickets to the park itself, including the lift, cable cars and buses would normally cost $115 each ( it is a 4 day ticket ), so the guide and driver cost an extra $175 each. ( Spoiler: it was worth it )
We were picked up at 9am by Gabby and ‘the driver’ ( never said his name, didn’t speak English, and Gabby appeared to have never met him before ). We headed north past the train station where we came into Zhangjiajie, and into the mountains. Traffic wasn’t too bad, and we soon arrived at Wulingyuan where the East Gate to the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park was located.
On the way to Wulingyuan we talked to Gabby, and she was asking questions about us and where were from, and we managed to cover topics such as the Chinese School system, the censorship of information by the Government ( Gabby raised this not us, and she was very open about the fact that the Government ‘lied’ about things ), how to get around the Government restrictions on internet access etc. She also directed us to her instagram page ( Instagram is banned in China ) so we could keep in touch.
Below is map of the Park ( click to enlarge ) which I have annotated with the locations we went to; red for walking, blue for bus and green for cable car
Arrived at East Gate of park at 9:45am. We used our passports to get through the East gate ( no queue ) and then onto the first bus ( of the 6 buses we would use today ). This bus drove us into the park proper, past Sochi Lake, and to our first stop: Golden Whip Creek at 10:10am.
We walked up the creek pathway for a while as Gabby explained the history of the Park and the area. This was a very pleasant walk in the forest, with stunning rocks formations above us and golden water in the creek ( caused by tannins ). After about 20 minutes we turned around and headed back down ( the path carried on for about 6km ) to carpark at 10:50am, crossed the stepping stones to the visitor centre to see a giant salamander ( which live in the creek ) and then back to the bus stop for our next bus.
This bus arrived after a couple of minutes and took us 5 minutes around the corner to the base of the Bailong Elevator at 11am. Gabby took our passports and sorted our tickets ( separate ticket required for the elevator ). She also switched our ticketing over to face scan so we didn’t need to scan our passports for the rest of the day. Got into a small elevator to go up a few storeys to a viewing platform, which was also the entry point for the Bailong Elevator itself.
Some information about the Bailong Elevator
the name means Hundred Dragons Heaven Elevator
worlds tallest outdoor elevator
climbs 326m in 1.5 minutes ( about a 70 storey building )
has 3 separate lift cars running in parallel
each lift car is double deck and holds 50 people ( 25 per deck )
moves up to 1380 people per car per hour, or 3,500 people per hour in total
We looked around at the mountains for a bit, including The Generals ( a series of spires on the other side of the valley ) then headed into the tunnel to the base of the Bailong Elevator itself. This was about a 5 minute walk inside the mountain ( the bottom1/3 of the elevator is inside the mountain itself ). There was a short queue of 5 minutes ( where we could choose upper or lower deck in the lift car ) and into the lift. We were lucky enough to get a spot next to the glass side of the elevator car so we could see the view as we went up.
A video of the rise of the Bailong Elevator from inside to outside ( warning if you get motion sickness ! )
We got out at the top ( the ride was over too fast! ) and walked along the top of one of the mountains that form the Park. These mountains are either spires that rise from the valley floor or ( a bit like Tianmen ) are more like plateaus with reasonably flat tops to the them . As we walked Gabby explained the name of the park, her Chinese name ( Her name is Li Zejia which means something like “person of the wide world”, which meant her parent had hopes that she would travel and help people from all over the world ) and we talked about Chinese names in general.
We walked to first ( of many ) viewing platform ( “Enchanting platform” ) at 11:45am. We are now standing at 850m above sea level, Zhangjiajie town is at 170m above sea level.
We took photos then kept walking along the cliff top walk, next we went to the Avatar Mountains area, then to the Hallelujah Mountains, the Thousand Lives Pool ( where people bring there gold fishes that they don’t want any more! ), and then to the Worth Bridge ( aka “First Birdge under Heaven” ) at 12:50am. It is hard to grasp how tall and skinny the spires are in this area as the scenery is so vast and rugged.
From there we headed up the hill to the carpark area at 1:15pm to catch our next bus to Yuanjiajie Mountain, then immediately changed to a smaller bus for the windy drive to Tianzi Mountain carpark at 1:30pm.
This National Park is so large that it is impossible to see all the accessible areas in 1 day ( hence the 4 day pass ) so we were very much having a ‘best of’ tour today, but it did mean quite a bit of bus time.
We arrived at Tianzi Mountain area at 2pm, and grabbed some lunch at the stalls that were conveniently located between the bus drop off and the viewing area. We got some spicy potatoes ( Y20 ) and a cold noodle dish ( Y25 ) and some drinks, and ate and talked to Gabby.
Again she was very open her and her life and China in general:
she was a second child at a time of 1 child families, so her parents had to pay a ‘fine’ for having her. She didn’t know how much her parent had to pay but it was a lot of money, and her parents often joked with her that she owed them a lot
she is single and wants to travel but her family want her to settle down and get married
she feels like she is between worlds; the modern world that her and her friends want to be in ( the western world ) and the traditional world of expectations and beliefs
After lunch ( and solving the problems of the world ) we kept walking at 2:30pm, down to He Long Park area ( He Long was responsible for the founding of the Park ) and another overview of more rock formations, then along the cliffs to more views, then to He Long’s Tomb, then back up through the shops ( including a McDonalds ), up more steps to the bus park.
It may seem like the descriptions of the areas is getting more brief as the day went on, but to be honest there are only so many rock pillars and formations that you can see before they start to look the same. The Park is amazing and worth a visit, but there are a lot of rocks to look at!
Jumped on to the 5th bus of the day, and this one took us up to the cablecar station at 3:30pm, then a short wort to the station and onto the cablecar and down the mountain. From the time we came up the lift we have been travelling around on top of the mountains, with roads connecting all the elevated areas. We were now coming down of those mountains back into the valley where we started. The cable car was a 8 person cabin and was a stunning ride down, passing by rock formations that we had only seen from above; as we sailed past them it was much easier to get a sense of the scale of the rocks and mountains.
We walked through the base station at 3:50pm then onto last bus which took us back the way we had come in and back to the East Gate at 4:30pm.
Gabby had called our driver so he was waiting for us in the carpark ( although a Gabby didn’t seem to know him very well she wasn’t sure who she was looking for ). A much quieter drive back to town with less chat ( we were all a bit tired ), arriving at our hotel at 5pm. Gabby got our details to send through some of the photos she had taken of us and we said goodbye.
As I have said above the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is stunning and very much a must see, but it is large and requires careful planning if you are tackling it yourself. It is hard to get lost as such, but a lot of the signage is unhelpful ( for instance a sign that pointed to one of the carparks where we needed to go to catch a bus ) said “Carpark” with no mention of the buses or where they went, and other signage was just the names of the features “Happy Dolphin Rock”. We saw a number of confused looking westerners with maps trying to figure out where to go next, and how to get there. We were very happy to have Gabby to take us exactly where we needed to go, even if it felt like sometimes we wanted to go faster than she did ( she was probably used to slower walkers than us ).
The Park was quite quiet ( according to Gabby and other things we have read ) but is was still busy in parts, with a wait sometimes to get to the front of the lookouts and a few bottlenecks on the walkways. We would not wanted to be there on a busy day.
Overall a very enjoyable day and a bucket list item ticked off.
Out for tea at 6:30pm, we walked to Xingmin Rd near the hotel for tea ( Y98 for chicken stir fry and rice, and 2 beers ) . Walked back to hotel at 8pm. The weather was starting to feel a bit cooler than it has ( which is good ) and there is a cold change and rain coming in a couple of days.
Zoomable Map ( pin is located on our hotel location )