(张家界・Zhangjiajie) Avatar Mountains

A bucket list item, Avatar Mountains.

Budget: JPY128,573 (~USD887)

JPY3,750. Hotel (JPY7,500 for 2 nights, 2 pax)
JPY5,736. Entrance, Tianmen Mountain, route B
JPY10,749. Entrance, Zhangjiajie National Park, with cable + elevator access
JPY6,149. Entrance, Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, with activities
JPY2,848. Ferrata extra at Grand Canyon.
JPY29,341. Food + Didi (split to 2) + Shanghai hotel (JPY10k/person) + other extras
JPY70,000. Flight, Tokyo to Zhangjiajie

Visit Date

April 11-13, 2025 (technically April 10 night -14 morning if you include flights)

When to Go
April-May or September-October.

Special Notes

Points of Interest :

Hehua International Airport 荷花机场.
Tianmen Mountain.

Tickets JPY5,736
There is a storage area for luggages and small bags.
There are plenty of English signs - but to get there from the airport, just grab a taxi and tell them Tianmen Mountain. There's only one spot to go to.
Access is via cable car 天门山 or bus. There are five different routes doing different combinations of cable car / bus. Diagram here. Since I don't want to take a bus and prefer to hike up than down, I chose Roundtrip Cable Line B.

Wulingyuan Scenic Area. Detailed locations for selection.

Tickets JPY10,275 with unlimited cable cars + Bailong elevator.
The place is divided into four :

Yuanjiajie (袁家界)・Hallelujah mountains where the Avatar mountains are.
Yangjiajie. Has the most beautiful cable car ride of them all.
Huangshizan. Not the easiest to reach - need to hike + shuttle + cable car then walk. Can only be passed from Yangjiajie.
Tianzi Mountain (天子山). Supposedly great for hiking with nice sunrises, but it's actually just the most crowded of them all. It's mainly restaurants and shops.

Enter at EAST GATE. From there, follow the signs to Bailong Elevator. Then it's basically a set route. I don't recommend setting a fixed itinerary.

For us, the main goal was the Avatar Mountains, so after going up Bailong Elevator the rest of the itinerary was simple. Once the walking route at Yuanjiajie was finished, we just took the first shuttle bus which took us to a Yangjiajie cable car OR Tianzi, we chose Yangjiajie as it was still early and we wanted to visit Huangshizan.

Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon (张家界大峡谷)

Tickets JPY8,859. with all activities (VR, zipline, glass bridge, boat, slides) + Ferrata
There is a luggage storage, but only for small items. Maybe 30cm x 30cm x 50cm. For luggage, you'll have to ask the shop owners to help them store for you (for a fee, of course)
The start point and end point are NOT the same if you want to take the beautiful stroll down the river.
It's like a themepark. In a canyon. We strongly recommend starting with the Ferrata as it might get crowded later in the day. After the ferrata, cross the glass bridge and finish the activities from the other side, then zipline down. From the zipline, just take the slide down and finish at the boat to do a walk past the canyon and finish the trip.

Hotel : Wuling Shanshui Hotel, unsurprisingly is not in google maps. I booked via trip.com. It's a 15 minute walk to the East Gate of Wulingyuan Scenic Area, and I would highly recommend.

Itinerary

High Level :

Friday - Tianmen Mountain

Saturday : Wulingyuan National Park

Sunday : Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon (with Glass Walk).

Friday. April 11

9:00am. Arrival at airport 荷花机场.
10:00am. Take Didi to Tianmen Mountain. Expected travel time is 41mins, 26.7kms if via bus, but there's a cable car only 8 mins drive away from the airport.

There's a luggage area at Tianmen mountain.

Follow the route to do Tianmen Mountain. Head to Wulingyuan for hotel.

Wulingyuan : days to alternate based on weather

06:00am. Head to Wulingyuan East Gate. It opens at 7am. Headup to Tianzi Mountain.
Figure out how to get to Avatar Mountains lol.

Sunday : days to alternate based on weather

9:00pm. Flight out.

Picture Log

Apologies for the inconsistent formatting, I got a new phone and was playing with settings.

Flying in!

Tianmen Mountain

Dropping our luggage. You can see the line on the right.

Luggage deposit - no size limit, just pricing.

10:28am. Following the signs to B route, we had to take the shuttle.

Shuttle drop off - we can already see the HOLE!

But first, a snack.

Looking down at the loooooong road up Tianmen mountain. This was closed when we went.

Almost there!

Time stamp : 11:23.

Wow.

It was a loooong way up.

Almost there.

Looking down.

11:48. The top of the hole. I think there's a patch up there?

And the bottom was also cemented.

Crossing to the escalator.

Traversing the side of the cliff.

Looking back. Can't see the hole anymore.

There were at least seven of these elevators.

Map at the top of the mountain. This is already above the hole, past the elevator.

Had some snacks. There are around three shops at the top.

...and lunch.

Ah. zero views.

One of the stops with an everlasting fountain or something.

Shrine? Temple?

Continuing on.

Had to buy separate tickets for the glass walk.

On our way to the glass walk.

The glass walk. Sorry I forgot to take picture of the glass. It's all white regardless.

Can't be scared of heights if you can't see anything.

Continuing on.

So we got lost.

An abandoned pagoda?

With a shrine inside a tent.

Back to the main route.

They sell locks that have no keys.

This is the spot to wish for sons.

One of my favorites - an eerie crossing of a bridge.

*ghost sounds*

Quite a drop.

This is probably the scariest for me because I can see the drop.

Back to the normal path. Basically this was the entire day.

Lots of red flags.

15:49. We fell in line and to head back down.

Goodbye Tianmen.

Cablecar actually goes up and down.

Our hotel.

Dinner!

Wulingyuan Scenic Area / Zhangjiajie National Park

Yuanjiajie (袁家界)

First elevator.

You could see the loooooong elevator up the mountain.

On our way to Bailong Elevator.

View right outside Bailong Elevator.

This is the entire Yuanjiajie, and easy to walk in an hour or two.

One of the many many pictures of rocks on my phone.

One big rock...

Big rock surrounded by other big rocks.

This is the less crowded season....

A bridge rock.

Crossing the bridge rock with lots of red flags.

More red flags.

View of rocks from the red flags.

...more red flags.

A bit more.

A monkey eating fast food.

Plenty of snacks in the area.

Yangjiajie

Continuing my snack, er, hiking trip.

View looking back. Not easy to take pics from inside the cable car.

Soooo. I forgot to take pictures of the cable car ride. The one above is actually for the return trip. I have videos though....

Huangshizan

Ok, I took pictures this time.

Looking down.

Looking at the side.

As part of our loop. I saw this rock, and went, ELEPHANT! Only to see an actual spot saying it's an elephant viewing point.

Have you seen enough rocks?

Here's some more.

Ok, done with Huangshizan. Back to Yangjiajie.

Lunch before heading out to Tianzi.

People were actually running.

Tianzi Mountain (天子山)

Tianzi! With... you've guessed it. More rocks!

Nice game of the floor is lava.

More of Tianzi rocks.

I think this is the most iconic shot.

Walking back to Wulingyuan.

Back at Wulingyuan, we can see the silhouette of the mountains.

Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon

This is the storage that can NOT fit luggages.

So we start at the part with lots of "P"s, cross glass bridge, zipline down back to the other side, then walk down the river.

The day starts!

The ferrata entrance.

Gearing up.

Then they kick you out.

Whoa.

Looking back the glass bridge.

That's a big drop.

There's a second set of ladders down - that's for people doing the uphill ferrata. We're doing the downhill one (coz I didn't know there was a choice)