Zhangjiajie

The in Flight magazine promised us unicorns. Among the many animals we were supposed to be able to see in Wulingyuan National Park, were unicorns. Monkeys I thought were a slim possibility, along with the many other animals noted in the article...... but unicorns? This I was not so sure about even though I was sure we would indeed see amazing things in the incredible National Forest Park of Wulingyuan, home to thousands of sandstone spires, some of which are a thousand feet high.

And we were not disappointed. Wulingyuan was well worth the trip.

We had lodging in the Hotel Pipaxi, just outside of the park, and collected our picnic lunches after breakfast and then walked down to the park entrance. I was not expecting such a high-tech system. Our thumbprints were applied to our entrance ticket, which we were told not to lose because we would use it again the next day. This was yet another example of leap-frog development, of which we saw so many examples in China. When you are building a brand new park, why not install the very latest in entrance gate technology?

We walked in and divided up into two groups. One group chose to follow the river walk option, the path along the Golden Whip Stream. My group headed straight up and would eventually be on top of one of the spires. The way was paved in quite a wide path of stone steps which started out past a forested area. We walked a bit of a distance before we finally realized that those trees were full of the promised monkeys, quite a few of them climbing in the trees. They were a lot of fun to watch.

I had been concerned about not bringing too much in to the park. I assumed we would be "packing out", or bringing back out everything we had brought in, but did not consume. I was of course, thinking of the parks in the states, where trashcans are simply not to be seen, very often due to budget constraints. Parks have discontinued trash removal services. But in China, this does not appear to be a problem. The park had trashcans on every landing. We were surprised to find stepping stones in the middle of the wide paths. In some places, there were oversized footprints made of concrete, and they were placed at differing heights, to make walking on that part of the path a bit of a challenge.
I certainly was not going to pursue that option, as this walk straight up the mountain was plenty difficult enough for me as it was. The group just bounded up the slopes, the stairs, the landings, just going, going, going. I lagged behind a bit. I can do that kind of climbing, but not at such a pace, so I did the best I could to keep up. I was glad when we finally reached the pavilion. This was a large covered structure. A couple of small groups were eating, and we came in and stopped for a short break. But in just a few minutes the break was over and it was time to head all the way to the top. I really was not quite ready. So I stayed behind, thinking I would rest a bit longer and then head up on my own, to see some of the highest part of the walk.

But this was not to come to pass because one of the groups which had been picnicking left the area, and the other group invited me to join them for their meal. This was very nice of them, and I did not want to refuse, but it was just a little difficult because I don't speak about a dozen words of Mandarin, and these men spoke very little English.

The four of them were seated on log chairs. In the middle of the low round table was a boiling hot pot full of soup. This was surrounded by a huge number of dishes.

to be continued