Zhang Jia Jie: Tian Men Mountain

Recently Aric and I made a trip to China. I wrote a general report about our trip, China trip, Novenber 2024 , followed by detailed reports Zhang Jia Jie National Forest Park , Zhang Jia Jie, the Grand Canyon, Fu Rong Ancient Town and Feng Huang Ancient Town . This will be the final report about our trip. Actually the Tian Men mountain was the main reason that Aric chose Zhang Jia JIe as a destination. But there was much more to see, so we kept the Gate to Heaven for the last day. Here is a photo taken from the Internet. The Tian character means sky or heaven, and the Men character means door or gate.

After breakfast and a morning walk in the old town of Feng Huang, we took the train back to Zhang Jia Jie. A bit more than one hour, just time enough to have lunch. Of course a bit expensive, but good quality.

This time Aric had not booked a hotel with a spectacular view, but with another advantage. It was in walking distance from the cable car station to the mountain. Here is the hotel, or to be more precise, a few floors , because the building houses several hotels. The other pic shows a map of the Tian Men mountain. There are basically two ways to do the Tian Men hike, clockwise or anticlockwise. Our plan was to hike counterclockwise, starting with the cable car we could see from our hotel. Our room was comfortable.

View from our hotel room. The building in the center is the station where the cable car starts and also the main ticket office. Although off-season, there was an amazing number of tour buses parked next to the station. At the horizon the Tian Men mountains.

Aric had planned a surprise for the evening, a visit to the 72 Qilou, often named 72 Strange Buildings. And strange it was, a kind of monumental folly. I could not find much reliable information about it. It has a Guinness world record for being the highest stilted building in the world, but the building is not stilted, only has many overhanging balconies. It must be a modern construction, although some web pages suggest that it is old.

It has become very popular with local tourists, especially in the evening when the lights are on. There are shows and many eateries. We had snack food there. The central hole in the building refers of course to the Tian Men gate.

Back in the hotel, Aric tried to buy tickets online for the following day, but could not. So we decided to wake up very early to be sure that tickets (they use time slots) would be available. It worked. There was a light drizzle, we bought rain coats, just in case . Then we went nack to bed, because we had bought tickets for the 10-11 am time slot. The weather looked a bit gloomy, we could not see the mountains from our hotel room.

We had simple breakfast in one of the several eateries on the ground floor of our hotel.

The cable car is with 7455 m the world’s longest passenger cable car in a high mountain. A trip takes 28 minutes anc ascends 1279m m.

Soon we were in the clouds, no views of the town and the mountains. The first day that we were not lucky with the weather.

Arrival at the upper station where our hike started. Above us blue sky, but we were most of the time in t he clouds.

The hike is spectacular. Cliff trails have been built with solid railings. Not scary, because most of the time we had no view. Also quite flat, not much up and down. Notice that often we could see blue sky above us.

One of the highlights of the hike is the glass walkway. We had to wear shoe covers. Because of the clouds it was not so scary, although sometimes we could look down.

This is the glass cliff walk (Internet photo probably taken by a drone). Building these cliff walks must have been very difficult.

After returning the shoe covers, we continued our walk.

Not always a cliff walk. Here a location with many wishing ribbons.

Then cliffs again. We kept taking pictures, and it was often possible to take photos without other people in it. An advantage of traveling off-season.

There was also a suspension bridge.

And a place with hundreds of love locks.

Halfway on the plateau there is a restaurant, where we had lunch. Aric used the toilet to warm his hands!

Next we visited the huge complex of the Tian Men Mountain Temple Dating back to AD 870 (Tang dynasty) it was destroyed during the Chinese Civil War and rebuilt in 1949.

It is a Buddhist temple with guardians, many halls and statues. Interesting but we were only halfway on our hike, so we did not stay very long.

The second half of our hike was similar to the first half. There was another glass cliff walk, but we skipped it.

We were still on the plateau, how to go down? The answer was : by escalator! Since 2015 there are two mountain escalators. The first one contains 7 segments and brought us down to the Tian Men gate. The second one, 5 segments, brings you down to the Tian Men square.

After this escalator you have to walk down to reach the bottom of the gate

We did it! Standing at the Gate of Heaven.

Here I am looking down the infamous 999 steps between the gate and the Tian Men square. No way that I was going down here. Hardly anybody did. Fortunately there was the second elevator.

Here we are at the square. Aric with his thumb down, because we could not see the gate. I with my thumb up, because there was coffee.

It was almost 5 pm and our plan was to stay until the evening, hoping that the lights would be switched on after dark. We sat down and walked around. Sometimes the gate was a bit visible for a short while. And there were nice tress with autumn leaves.

Many people were doing the same.

At exactly 6 pm, the lights came on. First simple white lights, but soon a light show started.

We are very happy with this picture. For a while the gate was visible. so scenic.

Around 7 pm we left the square, still had to walk some distance to another cable car which brough us down, followed by a bus back to where we started. Mission accomplished, we hiked more than 10 km, more than 15000 steps. But only 11 flights climbed. I was very happy that I could mange it

We rewarded ourselves with a sumptuous dinner. Cauliflower with Pork, Dry meat and Sausage fried and Fried Prawns.