Tianmen Mountain

Underneath the lower station of "short" cableway

Which ticket?

Erik and I are staying in a hotel in Zhangjiajie, which has many reviews from international tourists. The hotel host offered to buy our tickets for Tianmen mountain with a discount. When purchasing tickets from WeChat (when visiting in season, should be bought in advance as they can be bought out quite quickly), there are three routes to choose from. Route A, B or C. We have chosen a ticket with route B (278 yuan per person), which included shuttle bus from the entrance to the lower station of "short" cableway -> cable car to the upper station (at the Tianmen cave) -> escalator to the Tianmen cave (we decided to hike it) ->escalator to the mountain top -> hike on the mountaintop -> the "large" cablecar which brought us back to the entrance. Route A includes the same services, only the other way around, so one first takes the large cableway to the mountaintop and ends with a shuttle bus to the entrance. Route C is similar to Route B, only that it ends at mountain top after the Tianmen cave, when one comes back to the entrance.

999 stairs to Heaven

We have taken the Route B and started our adventure at 9:30 a.m. The shuttle bus took us to the lower station of the "short" cable way, which was already beautiful. Because of the unfortunate weather we had upon our arrival to Zhangjiajie the day before (it was raining the whole day), this was our first look on the mountains. It was essentially empty and felt almost divine.

Forest on top of Tianmen Mountain was completely frozen

Frozen Forest

I've never experienced a hike like this, where after the Gate to Heaven we had to take escalators to bring us to the mountaintop. Not really a hike but it worked. However at the mountaintop it was so cloudy and foggy that we couldn't see anything at all. But the nature was still beautiful. We walked through the frozen trees towards a cliffside path, which reminded us of a fairyland thanks to its thoughtfully crafted fence.

Glass Path and Tianmen Mountain Temple

The main part of the Tianmen mountain is a hike all the way around the mountaintop to go from one cableway to the other. Few hours after our arrival the clouds had fallen down and the weather got better, so we were able to enjoy the views a bit. Along the way, the are two paths on the cliffside made out of glass, which can be walked on with some additional fee. Half way through we stumbled upon the Tianmen Mountain Temple, which was magnificent.

Suspension Bridge

Along the way, we were surprised by a walk on a suspension bridge, which we didn't realize was part of the hike. The fog started to slowly lift up and we could finally see beyond the clouds. The bridge was swinging a bit which made the walk a little scary but so much more fun!

Forest of wishes

The Forest of Wishes

We apparently didn't do our research about the mountain, since close to the end of the hike we were surprised again. We saw a path away from the main one, and there weren't many footprints in the snow, but we could clearly see stairs, so we decided to check out what's hiding there. It took us about fifteen minutes of confusion and questioning if we got lost, until we arrived to what seemed like red trees (which looked magical in contrast to the white snow). People write wishes on red ribbons and hang them on the trees, which creates this beautiful atmosphere.

Cable cars going up the mountain

Longest cable car ride in the world

To end our adventure, we rode on the longest cable car ride in the world stretching over 7.5 km, which brought us from the top of Tianmen Mountain down to the city of Zhangjiajie. We landed five minutes away from our hotel and just immediately fell asleep. I woke at 8 p.m. absolutely starving.