The first thing you need to know about Zhangjiajie is that it consists of two mountains:

1. Tianmen mountain – near Zhangjiajie city (this is where the train station is).
2. Avatar mountains (Zhangjiajie Natural Forest Park) – near a town called Wulingyuan.

Zhangjiajie and Wulingyuan are 45 minutes away by bus and half an hour by taxi.

I have arrived in the evening to Zhangjiajie and have decided to spend one day exploring Tianmen mountain and two days exploring Avatar mountains.

DAY 1

My accommodation was conveniently located 5 minutes walk from the entrance to the Cable Car for Tianmen mountain. I really wanted to hike to the top but it is a bad idea. The only path you can take is to follow the road buses use to the top, and that is pointless hiking.

I did not book my tickets in advance and was surprised to find out that cable car tickets were not sold out. I was already consigned to using buses to get to the top. I even brought my motion sickness pills with me. You might be laughing but the road up is super curvy. My last hike to the Hengshan mountain ended up with me almost puking my guts off when returning down with the bus – the road really is just a collection of left-right-left-right turns. I managed to survive it, but the girl in the seat in front of me was not so lucky. Everyone has left the bus and she was still inside vomiting. Motion sickness is no joke…

The cable car gets you to the top of the mountain and then you can hike around the mountain. The path is a loop so you can walk around the entire mountain. The path is also mostly flat so it is better described as walking path than hiking trail. The scenery is spectacular.

There is one very beautiful temple at the top but honestly, I am fed up with Chinese temples. They all look the same – Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist all the same – or I have failed to notice the difference. European churches are very different if they are built in the romanic, gothic or neoclassical style. Chinese temples are all built in the same style, the only difference I noticed is the color of the rooftiles.

In the centre of the mountain is the viewing platform. This is the only “steeper” section but very easily manageable. It is not a long way from the main path and I think it is worth making this extra effort for a few good photos from the top.

The most famous part of the mountain is actually not at the top but hidden below. To get there, you need to take a lot of escalators. The escalators are in the western part of the walking path. Make sure that you have visited all the points at the top of the mountain before you descend with elevators, because you cannot go back.

Below is the stairway to heaven – a big whole in the mountain that looks like the entrance to Heaven. Well, at least this is how it looks like to the Chinese. Next to it is also a cave but I am absolutely not a fan of the caves so I have skipped it. 

Close to the Stairway to Heaven is the cable car to get back to the city. I started going up the mountain at 7:30 and was back in the city at 12:00. I had lunch, picked up my staff and took a bus to Wulingyuan.

I reached Wulingyuan around 14:00 and I could have went to explore the park that day. The tickets for the National Park are valid for 4 days! But I decided I will go to sleep and then to the gym. I made myself a promise to go to the gym minimum 3 times per week and hiking all day did not count as a gym, regardless of how many steps I made.

Avatar mountains is a very big national park which consists of a number of attractions you can reach with bus, cable car, elevator or mini-train. It sounds complicated but it is not. This is my map with my inscriptions of how to get from one point to the next. I am sure it is all clear. J

There are two entrances to the National park:

1. Eastern – walking distance from Wulingyuan and thus much, much more crowded
2. Southern – you need to take the taxi to get there, or a local bus, if you are not in a hurry.

DAY 2 

On day two, I have entered the NP through Eastern Gate and these are the attractions that I have visited:

1. Yuanjiajie – you need to take the bus at the Eastern Gate to the elevator. Not all buses go to this place, so make sure you are going in the right bus. The elevator takes you up high into the mountains. You start inside the mountain and everything is dark, but towards the end you get to the open part with views of the mountains. The transition from darkness to the views of the Avatar mountains is truly magnificent. The walking path is on the edges of the mountain so you will have many excellent viewing platforms. You just go straight and you will in the end reach the bus stop for your next destination.

2. Yangjiajie – this part allows you to go down and see the mountains from below.

You can walk or take the cable car. I walked, of course, but that was a mistake. The walk is not especially nice, in fact it was rather slippery, and then going up again was good work out for legs and gluts, but nothing more. I ran into an American guy who showed me the videos of the cable car ride and it is really something special. So definitely take the cable car, at least going up. The only upside of me walking is that I ran into a very friendly Chinese guy who kept me company. I was on a very tight schedule and I am a quick walker, so I am cautious about going with other people if they are slowing me down. But worry not, this guy is a soldier and even better, he is very interested in history. It was my opportunity to test my theories about Chinese history. I started giggling when he told me the only history thought in the Chinese military is Communist China. 2000 years of imperial history – zero points; 3000 years of pre-imperial China nul point. I was not surprised, but I was still sad when he told me he does not know much or cares much about my favorite Chinese dynasty – the Song Dynasty – when China reached its cultural and scientific peak, but was militarily quite weak and kept losing wars to barbarians like Khitan, Jurchen and finally Kublai Khan’s Mongols.

3. Aerial garden – another bus ride away and you get to the Aerial garden where you have two options: walk or take a minibus ride. Minibus ride is 32 yuan one-way and I definitely advise you to take it. I went walking and it was not a very pleasant walk. I was walking on the same road the minibus took. It was quite a long walk, over an hour before anything of interest happens. Basically, you want to reach two rice fields to take photos from above. The minibus will drop you off at these two stops. I feel that the only reason they are cultivating these fields is for the tourists to take photos. After the second field, you should follow the path down and you will reach a nice viewpoint of the mountains around the elevator you took to climb up the mountains.

4. Viewing platform – after a very short bus ride (maybe 3 minutes) you will reach the viewing platform, which consists of three paths that take you to the viewing platforms. Two paths are very close, but the last one is around 20 minutes walk.

5. Tanzhi mountain – the last stop on my tour and definitely one of the highlights. It offers many viewing points, though it is also one of the most crowded areas. The area is full of shops, restaurants – there is even a McDonalds. When you finish here, you take a cable car down and there another bus to the exit at Eastern Gate.

I have entered Eastern Gate at 7:30 and have exited it at 17:10.

DAY 3

The next day I took a different route. I started at Southern Gate and from there you walk to the square, where you take the bus to your first destination.

1. Huangshizhou – you take the cable car which takes you high in the mountains. There is a loop path – you go in a circle around this mountain and you have hundreds of places to take excellent photos. You will also very likely run into a few monkeys. These are macaques, who have an unfortunate combination of extreme intelligence and vile temper, so beware, you have been warned. You can hike to this mountain, but after yesterday’s misses, I have decided to take the cable car on the way up and down.

2. Jinbianxi – you take the bus back from the Huangshizhou to the square and there you turn left to take the 7.5 kilometers walk through a lush forest. You are following a stream and looking at the mountains from below. In fact, this is definitely the best place to see the mountains from below. Most of the time you are in the shade, which is an additional benefit. If you like scoundrels, aka monkeys, you will see plenty of them because the Chinese keep feeding them. The path is not a loop, you will end up your walk right next to the Elevator (my first stop on previous day).

3. Ten-mile Elevator Gallery – at the Elevator station you need to take the bus for Ten-Mile Elevator Gallery or something like that. The problem is that every translator translates it differently. This was my final stop in the Zhangjiajie and they have done it: I have fallen into a massive tourist trap! What a piece of shit this is! You can either walk or take the mini-train. Since I was in a rush, I took the mini-train. You are looking at the mountains from below, except that everything is much less beautiful than at Jinbianxi, and to my great frustration, the mini-train was progressing with the speed of the snail! Avoid! Avoid!

After taking the same painfully slow train back, I took the bus to the Eastern Gate. This was a much shorter hiking experience. I was at the Southern Gate at 7:00 and have left the park at 11:30.

I was quite in a rush because I needed to catch a train to the famous Yellow Mountain. The next day the weather forecast is sunny and then the next few days it says clouds, rain and more clouds. The Yellow Mountain is notorious for clouds ruining the views so I could not take that chance.

If you are in a rush and want to do Avatar Mountains in one day, you can, and you will not lose a lot. If I was doing it again, this is how I would do it:

1. Get into the NP at Southern Gate
2. Huangshizhou
3. Jinbianxi
4. Take the elevator to Yuanjiajie (the added benefit is that your walk through Jinbianxi will end at the Elevator station)
5. Aerial Garden (but take the minibus, do not walk)
6. Tanzhi Mountain
7. Take the cable car down and then the bus to the Eastern Gate.

This tour gives you everything:

• The best views of the mountains from the top – Huangshizhou, Yuanjiajie and Tanzhi mountain
• Best view of the mountains from below – Jinbianxi
• Something “special”: rice fields plus the mountains – Aerial Garden.