Tianmen Mountain Travel Strategies
Tianmen Mountain is another must visit place when you are in Zhangjiajie, it is located in Zhangjiajie city, 10 minutes from Zhangjiajie airport by taxi, 3 minutes from Zhangjiajie railway station and 40 minutes from Zhangjiajie National Forest Park by bus. The only way you can go up is by cableway, this cableway is the longest cableway in the world, about 7500meters long, yes, it is 7.5 kilometers long, 40 minutes riding from the bottom of mountain to the top, AMAZING!!! There are 3 cableway stations together: the first cableway station, the mddle one and the upper one.
Firstly, you have to take the cableway to the top of mountain directly, there are 2 lines you can choose when you are on the top of mountain: the West line and East line. Most groups will go to the West line, of course, there are a lot of nice places you can enjoy in the west line, such as the Glass Road on the cliff, Tianmen Temple, Guigu Cave and so on, among which the Glass Road on the cliff is the most popular one, it is a 65m long road built on the cliff (more than 1000 meters deep)and it is made of glass, similar with the glass road in American Great Canyon, very exciting to have a walking on it, but you have to be brave enough, otherwise......
There is a small lift you can take from Tianmen Temple to the top of Yunmeng Pagoda, the ticket of this lift is not included in the mountain ticket, you have to pay 25RMB/PAX, about 10 minutes ridng and not bad experience. You also can visit Tianmen Temple if you are interested in Buddhism, the temple is very huge, our guide Belly from Zhangjiajie Tour Club told us that it costs 80 million RMB to bulid this temple on the top of mountain, amazing!
After 2 hours hiking in the mountain you return to cableway station again, this time you need to use the mountain ticket to check in and take the cableway to get down, please remember you have to get off when you arrive in the Middle cableway station, the loudspeaker in the cableway will tell you and the work staff in the Middle cableway station also will remind you to get off if you want to see the Tianmen Cave. There is a bus station near to the cableway station, it will take you 30 minutes to the cave, it is common for you to spend 1 hour to ride the bus during the peak season for there is a long line, you’d better take the seats near to the Window, there are a lot of sharping turning on the way to the cave, our guide said there are totally 99 turnings, 99 cableways and 999 steps from the bottom to Tianmen Cave, 9 is a good number in china.
Yes, you have arrived the Tianmen Cave after getting off the bus, The spectacular cave is just in front of you, you should hike up to the cave if you liking hiking, the feeling is really nice after conquering 999 steps, a lot of great adventures are held here, such as the airplane crossed through Tianmen Cave in 1999, Spider man climbed Tianmen Cave in 2006，The world bicycle race and the wing suit flying competition are held here every year, so Tianmen Mountain is praised to be the heaven for the adventurers. Just enjoy it.
You almost finish your trip in Tianmen Mountain after this cave, then take the bus back to Middle cableway station and ride the cableway to get down.
At Last but not least, there is still another thing you can not miss on the foot of Tianmen Mountain: The Fox Lady Show, it is really a spectacular show and one of the best show I have ever seen, it uses the Tianmen Mountain as a stage, located in a deep valley, more than 500 performers on the stage, the story is simple---a love story between a poor man and a fox lady, there are 3 languages on the screen, Chinese, English and Korean.
Some useful tips:
1，most people will ride the cableway to the top of mountain in the morning, so you can first visit Tujia Folk Graden in the morning, 5 minutes by taxi to the garden from Tianmen Mountain, 90 minutes to enjoy. Otherwise you will have a long line to take the cableway;
2，You’d better have a guide if you dont have a good sense of the direction.
3， you cay stay in Zhangjiajie City if you want to visit this mountain, the city is a small city and convenient to different places.
4， There are 2 KFC and 1 MacDonald in the center of Zhangjiajie city, it is a good choice if you do not like the local food( the local food is very spicy)
5， There are no restaurant on the Tianmen Mountain, and the snacks are very expensive, even the water will cost you 5RMB/BOTTLE, but the price is only 1 RMB/BOTTLE in the supermarket, so buy some food before starting your trip.
