Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, (also spelled Zhang Jia Jie) is an area of astounding natural beauty located in the Hunan Province of south-central China. The landscape here inspired the set designers of the blockbusting film ‘Avatar’; its peaks have now been given the unofficial name of ‘Avatar Mountains’. In this World Pursuits report, Rose Antonette Espino visits Zhangjiajie, and comes away suitably impressed.
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Zhangjiajie: A look beyond the Hallelujah Mountains
The Avatar Mountains
James Cameron’s Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time. It was a major breakthrough for the movie industry – almost the entire planet went to see it! It delivered above and beyond all expectations, and was the first movie to break the 2 billion dollar mark.
The acclaimed CGI effects of the blue extra-terrestrial humanoids were impressive enough, but what really made the viewers give a collective gasp was Pandora’s floating ‘Hallelujah Mountains’. The terrain was so peculiar and dreamlike that one would think that it could only exist in the movies. Apparently not! According to Dylan Cole, designer for the movie, the Hallelujah Mountain was inspired mainly from the karst limestone formations in Zhangjiajie, China.
I was heading for a 5 week trip to China and after hearing about the Avatar Mountains, I had to see them for myself. Although it was barely a week before my trip I decided to tinker with my already prepared itinerary. Actually it only took one Google image search of the Yuanjiajie Mountain to convince myself that I didn’t need to see the Pandas of Chengdu nor the Terracotta warriors of Xian after all.
Hunan Province
Due to the lack of resources available online about Zhangjiajie, there isn’t much preparation one can really do. All I knew for certain was how to get there. Zhangjiajie is a city in Hunan—a mountainous province in south central China. There are four popular mountains in Zhangjiajie. The one I was looking for is Yuanjiajie or which tourists simply call ‘The Avatar Hallelujah Mountain ’. It is located inside the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Wulingyuan—a town 50 minutes away from the city.
I spent one night in the city before deciding to make Wulingyuan my base. I stayed in a small guesthouse in the village, which was just a five-minute walk from the east entrance. It proved to be a practical decision given that the CNY 248 comprehensive ticket is good for 3 days. It made getting in and out of the park easier.
The friendly hostel keeper gave me a simplified map of the park. It was so simple that it looked like an abstract connect-the-dots page.
Zhangjiajie National Park
Looking at the map, I was caught by surprise of how well-developed the Zhangjiajie National Park was. There are several ways to reach the mountain top; one is the cable car to the Tianzi Mountain, the other is through an outdoor elevator, and third is on foot via the Golden Whip Stream. To get to Yuanjiajie, I was told that most tourists go up via the Bailong elevator and then go down the Golden Whip Stream. In order to avoid the crowd and give myself a challenge, I decided to do it the other way round.
Armed with a map, some biscuits and a bottle of water, I made my way to the Golden Whip Stream. It was easy to follow since the trail is leading to the direction of the river.
The Golden Whip Stream was absolutely breathtaking. The weather was lovely, the trees provided shade, and the sight and sound of the river flowing by made me excited about what was waiting for me further up the trail. My earlier hunch had proved correct, and there weren’t many people using this route. In fact, except for a few hikers and small groups that I came across, I was mostly walking in solitude. It was so relaxing that before I realised it I had been walking for more than an hour. I looked at my map and thought that I might have missed a turn somewhere. I asked for directions and found out that I had missed a turning half a mile back down the trail. The tour guide kindly walked with me back to a flight of stairs that were hidden behind a massive rock wall.
Yuanjiajie
The hike up the mountains was where the real challenge began. Apart from a couple of short flat parts, it was uphill all the way: a staircase with around 3000 steps. I hadn’t even made ten percent of the ascent before I was gasping for air.
Every now and then I would come across free-roaming monkeys that were so used to humans feeding them that they now just grabbed food straight out of people’s hands.
But not even the sight of cute little monkeys could take my mind off the difficulty of this trail. It was really tough, and I became aware of every breath; every ache and pain of my body. I felt my lungs and calves burning with every step. Clearly, I had underestimated this climb. I now understood why people opted to take the elevator up!
One thing that kept me going was the lovely Chinese couple I met during one of my rests. They were both over sixty and doing the same trail as me. Meeting them gave me a much-needed boost to go further. I may have been tired and out of shape, but if they could make the climb then surely I could. After I passed them, whenever I rested for too long I would see them catching up, and I would be snapped out of my break.
After 2 hours of climbing I finally huffed and puffed my way to the top. Fifteen minutes later, the couple made it up.
Avatar Mountains
The view above the mountain was simply breath-taking. My eyes widened – it was as if I was back in the cinema, wearing 3D glasses. The Yuanjiajie Mountains might not be floating as they had been in the movie, but the remarkable pillars and summits looked eerily familiar. It was surreal.
Every viewing platform looked across stunning horizons of towering sandstone and deep valleys – each spire standing high, immaculate and virtually untouchable. There wasn’t much else I can say but, “Wow! Hallelujah indeed!”
While basking in the beauty of the natural wonder before me, I felt like I was on top of the world. While I literally was already on top of a mountain, I also felt something inside that elevated me emotionally. I wanted to celebrate.
I could hear the roaring crowd jostling for position to take photos, teenagers screaming their lungs out to hear their voices echo onto the mountains, all in the loud Chinese that normally bothers me. This time it didn’t.
People usually climb up mountains to find peace and tranquillity. This mountain is not for that. It deserves thunderous applause, or wide open-mouthed screaming. It is so otherworldly and unbelievable that you need some sort of confirmation. I honestly wouldn’t have found it weird if some random person had screamed at my face and said, “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?!”
After a thousand snapshots and about 4 hours of hiking and exploring the Yuanjiajie, I decided to bid farewell to the Avatar Mountain. I rode the shuttle bus from the Enchanting Stop to the infamous Bailong Elevator.
Bailong Elevator
The Bailong Elevator, also known as the Hundred Dragons Elevator, is built on one of the massive sandstone columns of the mountain. Standing at 1070 ft. high, and featuring a double-deck of sightseeing glass panels, the Bailong is considered to the tallest full-exposure outdoor elevator in the world.
I purchased my single trip ticket for CNY 72 and immediately made my way to the back of the queue. What I thought would be a nice quick trip down the mountain took 2 hours of queuing. Apparently, only 1 out of the 3 elevators was working that day. Even so, I didn’t mind it so much. I was still on a high from the mountains and valleys. Not even the constant pushing and shoving in the line could dampen my spirits.
What had taken more than two hours of gruelling climbing took the elevator less than two minutes to descend. In a way, the elevator felt like a reward. Doing it the other way around would definitely have been easier but it would’ve also lessened the overall experience. The struggle to reach the top provided me a much wider perspective and deeper appreciation for the mountains.
All in all, I consider Yuanjiajie – and the entire Zhangjiajie National Park – to be hidden gems, which now have the potential to get really big. With a popular movie to capitalize on, it will only be a matter of time until these magical mountains will give in to commercialization.
If Yuanjiajie is on your bucket list, then I suggest you go now. It was the highlight of my travels in China and I will go out on a limb and say that it is even more worthy of a visit than the Great Wall of China.
Rose Antonette Espino