Tianmen Shan

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Tianmen Shan (Tianmen Mountain)

As one of biggest attractions of the Hunan province, Tianmen Shan is downright impressive. It's a redonkulous lone mountain peak that stands higher than any other mountain in the region. To get to the top, you take a cable car from the city of Zhangjiajie to the top of the peak. It's the longest high mountain passenger cableway in the world! It's 4.6 miles long and accends 4200 feet. Tianmen Shan also features a massive 100 ft wide natural archway in the mountain called "Tianmen Cave". Jeb Corliss (aka SAIL!) the world renown wingsuit glider dominated the thing back in 2011. So EPIC. To get to the cave, you'd have to take a separate 11 km road with 99 bends. It's called "Heaven-Linking Avenue". Seriously, 99 hairpins! It's like a track from Mario Kart. I watched a video just now of a dude in a skatesuit bomb the whole road. I dubbed it, Master Chief humps pavement . Gnarly huh? It makes my crotch cringe just watching it.

Huan and his wife were going to be busy preparing for their wedding so we agreed it would be a good idea for me to go to Zhangjiajie. I rode an 8 hour, overnight train from Loudi to Zhangjiajie. My ticket was for a "hard-sleeper" - basically a firm bunk bed with a blanket and pillow. It was terrible but I'm laughing now. The bed was too short so my feet stuck out into the aisleway. I was on the middle bunk and the attendant would tap on my exposed feet whenever he walked by. Rascist. I didn't sleep much. They should advertise it as a "hard-to-sleeper" berth!

When I arrived in Zhangjiajie, I checked into the hostel and was quickly invited over by a trio of Austrialians from Melbourne. The two guys, Tony and Mark, had been in Guangzhou for 2 weeks on a skateboard trip with their buddies. Tony's GF, Catherine, had rendezvous'd with them 6 days earlier. Catherine wanted to spend Valentines Day in Zhangjiajie. Owwhmygawd, that's delightful.

It was already 12'noon so we'd only have halfaday to adventure - Zhangjiajie National Forest Park would be saved for tomorrow. Before heading out, another guest in the hostel handed me his 2 cable car passes he'd used the day before. He said they were two-day tickets and should still have value. Thanks BRAJ! The 3 Aussies and I set out to find the bus down to the cable car. At the tram station, Tony and Cat went and bought 2 more tickets. When we approached the turnstile to get into the tram line, one of the "free" passes didn't register. Even after several attempts, it still showed a red "X" on the display. The attendant checked everyone else's tickets only to find that 2 worked and 2 didn't. Hmm. I insisted that they were all valid, but the attendant started talking to us although not one of us could understand! Lost in translation and with other guests piling up behind us, we were asked to follow the worker downstairs to the ticket window. Rut roh...

But wait, this is when things got interesting! The attendant said something to the ticket window, who then pointed at a crowd of ticket hawkers all standing in a group smoking cigarettes and talking into cell phones. The attendant said to one of the hawkers something like "did you sell them these tickets?" The hawkers all pointed accusations at one another and then began calling their counterparts via cell phone. What a kick! The hawkers were handed the blame. At this point, I started realize that we were going to be OK. The attendant apologized to us again and asked us to follow her back upstairs to have another go at scanning our tickets. When we got there, another worker reached over the wall and handed us two "new" tickets. BOOM BABY! Everything worked perfectly. Soon after the attendant apologized again, Mark turns to me and says, "i don't think those weren't 2 day passes Marcus, but did we just get to go in anyways!!?" Yep! Buy 2, get 2 free holmes. Save that trick for your down unda! (gross). Lesson learned: Corruption works well in China.

The ride to the top was "meh". The upper elevations were socked in by heavy clouds. We got to see the Heaven-Linking Avenue and the Tianmen Cave on the way up but after that it was bleak. The temp at the top was well below freezing so many of the stone pathways were covered in ice. We picked up some loaned crampons from a group who was waiting in line to leave. With the heavy fog and all, it actually felt kind of mysterious up there. Most Chinese myths are born on a high, misty mountain like Tianmen Shan. I kept hoping that we'd stumble across a long-bearded Shaolin monk or a levitating, talking goat. Tianmen Shan would be a sick arena for Mortal Kombat. I slipped 1 time and bruised my ass. K.O.'d !!

We walked around the whole mountain in just under 2 hours. Our feet were sufficiently numb and we were all satisfied with our photo-takings. The moment Tony mentioned "beer" I was ready to leave. We waited through a fat line to get back on the cable car. In a crowded maze of roughly 300 people I can safely say that I got to experience the 'real' China. Babies everywhere! Cigarette smoke! Litter everywhere! At one point, we walked through a section of the maze that smelled strongly of piss. It all makes sense. Enlightenment atop Tianmen!! Who wants to lose their place in line so their kid can pee in a restroom? Yeah, for a Chinese person that's perfectly logical reasoning. Miserable situation for the other 298 of us!

We feasted near the hostel and then threw back a few cold ones in the comfort of a table w/ an underside heater. Despite the awful night before, it turned out to be a pretty fun day after all. Tianmen Shan. Happy Valentine's Day (Tony + Cat) !

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