Zhangjiajie National Park Day 1

We commenced our exploration of Zhangjiajie National Park today and had agreed to grab breakfast at 0700.  With rain still ongoing, we messaged each other and delayed breakfast to 0800 before walking through to the park’s gate just after 0900.

We had booked for an entry time of 0900 to 0900.  It was super crowded at the automated turnstiles which scanned our passports and captured our faces.

The advice in wet weather was to go to the Ten Mile Gallery first and then do the Golden Whip Stream hike.

Amongst the crowd, we didn’t know which bus to take.  Not fully comprehending the park layout and the signage, we simply chose the bus queue which was less busy and ended up at the base of Tianzishan cableway.

Realising our mistake, we stepped back and studied the map more carefully and backtracked to a junction to change to tbe bus bound for Bailong Elevator.  That bus dropped us off at the Ten Mile Gallery.

Ten Mile Gallery

Ten Mile Gallery is short hike of about 40 mins that runs beside a toy train line that offers views of scenic mountains along the way.  One would return to the same point afterwards.

Dressed in our ponchos walking in the drizzle, the views looking at the pinnacle-like mountains were nice but not stunning.  That’s even before going to the more spectacular parts of the park.
We did the walk together to the far end.  I returned on the train with E & BW to conserve energy for the rest of the day.  Because we snacked at the far end before boarding the train, KL & M actually beat us back on foot!

Typical scene at the Ten Mile Gallery.

Golden Whip Stream hike

From the Ten Mile Gallery, we continued on the Bailong Elevator bus to be dropped off at the Golden Whip Stream hike starting point.  A large service area with eateries was located there so we grabbed a bite before starting around 1330 on the 7.5 km walk which took us about 2h.

The weather was clearing at this stage and we no longer needed our ponchos.

It was a very scenic walk along the clear stream flanked by greenery through which we could see glimpses of the sharp peaks.  We emerged around 1530 near the South Gate of the park.

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Huangshizhai 

We were worried about the time we had left to go up Huangshizhai by cablecar and return back down by the closing time.

We found the bus to take us to the Huangshizhai cable car lower station and ascended through a gap between the characteristic peaks of the region.

At the upper station around 1600, we had trouble finding the starting point of the loop walk.  We thought we would walk in a clockwise fashion as it appeared to have more viewpoints of interest but none of the places were got to matched up to the points marked on the map.

With 2 hours from the start of our walk till the last cable car down, we allocated ourselves about 45 mins before we would turn back, rather than complete the loop (unless we had information that would assure us that we would complete the loop in time).

At this point, the differing risk attitudes in the group started to show.  Some were convinced that they would not leave anyone behind on the mountain in the evening.

The scenery was jaw-droppingly beautiful.  This is the first time we were looking down at the scenery as we had been looking up in the last two places.

With some reassurance from people walking in the opposite direction, we nervously completed the loop without backtracking.  It took us about 1h30 and we were on the cable car down at 1740.

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Finishing at South Gate after a long day on our feet, we were met with a long walk just to get to the exit.  We couldn’t find the bus to take us back to Wulingyuan but found a large taxi that accommodated us for about the same price as five bus tickets.

We took dinner in a private room at a restaurant before heading back to the hotel via a supermarket.