Travel with Kevin and Ruth: This area is a bucket list item!

The main reason for coming to the Zhangjiajie area is for the two national parks... Tianmen Mountain, and Wulingyuan.

Ever since I saw photos of Wulingyuan National Park many years ago, this area has been a bucket list item.

Our guest house was located only a short walk from the main cable car station. Our host gave us a detailed route to follow, told us which tickets to buy, and off we went.

These two parks are very popular, and they're not cheap. Seniors age 65 and over get a substantial discount, but even those age 60-64 get a decent discount. We are 64, and we paid 153 yuan ($32 CAD, $22.50 USD) each for a day pass to Tianmen Mountain including transportation once in the park.

Heading up in the cable car.

Only problem is that the weather isn't cooperating!

They are installing a new upper cable car, so that one is closed and we had to take a shuttle bus up an amazing mountain road with so many hairpin turns.

Amazing mountains!

Our road heading higher.

How they built a road up here is mind boggling.

We would end up taking this cable car back down later in the day.

There it is... Heaven's Gate.

Looking back down, you can see part of the road we came up on.

The stairs up to the gate are a popular attraction.

Ruth, enjoying the view.

The road we came up on!

The road is only open to shuttle buses and service vehicles.

The tourist center is located halfway up the mountain.

We are headed up there.

It's a little wet, but sometimes it is foggy as well. Wet isn't great, but foggy is worse!

There are 999 steps to get up to Heaven's Gate.

Yes, the steps are called... the Stairway to Heaven!

A statue of French adventurer Alain Robert who free climbed the side of the mountain back in 2007.

Heaven's Gate.

View through the other side.

It's all very spectacular, but of course the drawbacks are the crowds, and the fact that it's been so commercialized. There was a time 50 years ago when you could hike up here and be the only one around, but those days are long gone. Now, everybody gets up here through a series of cable cars, buses, and escalators. You don't even have to climb the 999 stairs because an escalator is built into the mountain. The technology and infrastructure is actually amazing. But you don't come here for a relaxing day hiking in the mountains.

Looking back.

Through to the other side.

But Heaven's Gate is not at the top... in fact it's not even close to the top. They have built a series of 7 very long escalators into the mountain. Each escalator takes approximately two minutes.

Looking behind us.

Looking ahead of us.

Then when you get off the escalators, you can hike up there!

And there is about a 7.5 km long path that circles the top of the mountain.

Again, it's not a hiking trail... it's a busy bricked or concrete path with stairs and railings that are often built right into the mountain with some sections done with see through glass flooring.

So don't come up here expecting to go for a nice hike in the woods.

Did I mention it's busy?

The viewing platform at the top.

Scenery along the way.

Zoomed in on the city of Zhangjiajie.

The walkway is attached to the side of the cliff. I have no idea how they built it!

Looking down at Heavens Gate.

Of course there has to be a temple at the top.

Inside the temple.

There are other sections where they sell love locks and prayer ribbons to attach to various things.

There's even a suspension bridge at the top.

The edge walk.

Me!

The eternal spring. This waterfall spouts out of the side of the mountain.

They have not yet been able to determine the source.

Prayer ribbons.

Glass walkway.

This pic gives a good representation. So does the look on Ruth's face!

Heading down on the cable car.

Back at the bottom.

They do evening shows at this theater.

Looking back up at where we were.

Zoomed in on the cable cars bringing people down.

the street where our guest house was.

Despite the rain and the crowds, we still had a great day. Would it have been better without the rain and the crowds? Not necessarily because without the rain, there would have been more crowds! Anyhow, it is what it is, and we made the best of it. Certainly you can tell by the number of photos, which I had already whittled down by quite a lot.

We picked up our bags at the guest house and went back out to the main street. By this time it was already about 5:00pm and we summoned a Didi taxi to take us another 35 minutes to the town of Wulingyuan where we will stay for the next four nights. We paid a little more, but really lucked out on our room on the top (5th) floor of this guest house.