Thursday 04 October

Jialanglang Shan ticket

Inside Quzhou bus station

Today I arranged with one of my students Xu Liang to go to Jianglangshan (Jianglang Mountain) with 4 of his friends.

This rock formation is part of the six Danxia landforms to be declared world natural heritage by UNESCO.

Three peaks from north to south make its recognizable "river-shaped" arrangement, as follows: Lang Feng, Ya Feng and Ling Feng. We would climb Lang Feng which has elevation of 816.8 m.

Fruit on sale in Jiangshan

We set out by taxi from the college at 6:30 get to the at the bus station in time to catch a bus to Jiangshan, approximately 30 kilometres to the southwest.

A carton of Chinese gooseberries
(kiwi fruit)

The first interesting thing was the size of the bus station – it was almost like a small airport. X-Ray baggage checks, numbered gates, and coaches lined up on the ‘tarmac’. About 7:30 we boarded our coach for Jiangshan.

Jiangshan is a large town, with its own bus station as well. It also appears to be the Chinese gooseberry (kiwi fruit) capital of China. I can remember eating them as a child, cut in half, sprinkled with sugar and scooping the flesh out of the skin with a teaspoon.

Arrival at the base carpark.
We would climb the highest peak

Starting point for the climb

In Jiangshan we hired a mini-bus for a bumpy 25km trip to the base of Jianglangshan. Many toots of the horn and near misses with other vehicles and pedestrians later, we arrived at the base car park. After buying tickets, we boarded bus for a short trip to the base of the three peaks.


Jianglangshan is famous for its 3 grand stones, Lingfeng Peak, Yafei Peak and Liangfeng Peak.  The highest point of Lingfeng Peak is 816.8 metres above sea level, and is 260 meters high from the base.

It is also famous for the ancient Kaiming temple and the largest stone carving of Chairman Mao’s handwriting on the cliff and Yanxia pavilion.

Example of some of the footwear

Xu Laing (center) and his friends
 at the first temple

After checking that we had everyone and everything, we started our climb. At this point I had no idea that we were actually going to climb to the top.

After about 20 minutes, we arrived at the first temple, and I thought that this is pretty easy going.

The easy first stage, with
valley in the background

There were some people, mainly women, in highly inappropriate gear for climbing, more suited to a night of clubbing or KTV.  This was also the first of the food and rest stops, many more of which we were to encounter on the way up.

Painted figures in the temple

 So, after a short break we headed further up the hill.

There were crowds of people, and it was more like following a queue than anything else.

After another 20 minutes climbing upwards and through a great cleft between the two shorter peaks. Eventually we arrived at small clearing with more food available.

Lunch stop - Posing for photos

At the lunch stop

The main offerings in these places were eggs (boiled in tea so they look quite dark but taste OK), spicy tofu stew, duck heads, instant noodles, gooseberries and cut watermelon.

 The night before, we’d bought some food and water for the day.

I’d rashly bought a small watermelon which I began to regret because of its weight as we climbed higher. I was very glad when we cut it up and shared it around the group at this point on the climb.

We shared our other rations (the food on sale was quite expensive),  had a brief rest and took photos.

From here (I realised later) was the beginning of climb to the summit of the highest peak, Lingfeng. The path became narrow, single file and the were steps higher and steeper.

On the way up the narrow path

View of the valley on the way up

 It was now getting hot as we climbed higher, hanging onto the railing and trying not to look down too often. A couple of times I definitely had twinges of vertigo and just focused on the next step to distract myself.

We were starting to see people coming down, squeezing past us, and I thought how is this going to work when we have to descend and there are still hundreds of people coming up?

Later I found that there was a separate decent path, and so these were the few people who had turned back.

The seemingly endless path wound on and on, and it was difficult to see more than a few people ahead. After about 20 minutes from the lunch stop, we arrived at a small platform (again with food for sale – how do these people get it all here?) and a stone bridge to the final ascent.

Eventually, 10 hard slogging minutes late we arrived at the summit, about 2 hours after starting the climb.

Below the stone bridge

Xu Liang above the stone bridge

The sign on the summit, with an
evolutionary message

View of the two smaller peaks and the
valley from the summit

The crowded pagoda on the summit

The summit area was quite small, so it was very crowded, especially since it included include the food and gift stall! Everything would have been carried up in the early morning before visitors arrived.

There was a small viewing pagoda that was always very crowded, but we eventually managed to get in to take photos and enjoy the view.


The huge number of people here is because of the national holiday. Apparently almost 10,000 people had visited the day before.

Spectacular views on the way down

Descending through a fissure
in the rock

The view from the top was spectacular and the photos don’t really capture the atmosphere.

Speaking of which, it was very hazy so visibility was limited. It reminded me of a bad day in the Blue Mountains near Sydney.

After spending a short time for a rest and jostling for some shade, we decided to head down. This was when I discovered the separate path down, although in a few places it climbed up again, and I can tell you that those short climbs back up were really unwelcome!

his rock doesn't look so high!

The descent was mainly on the northern face, and was more shaded which was a relief. What we weren’t prepared for was the steepness of the descent. The steps were high, narrow and quite rough in places which made it very tricky – treacherous in wet weather.

Additionally, in some sections we had to descend by ladder, and for some people this was causing serious problems. Because of them, the descent was incredibly slow with some people freaking out and having to be coaxed into continuing down.

By my calculation, it took almost 2.5 hours to return to the base.

By now we were all pretty tired so thankfully there was only a short wait for the bus back to Jiangshan. This time we caught a bumpy local bus which took an unbelievably circuitous route, and the trip back took almost twice as long as the mini-bus we’d hired on the way there!

We arrived back in Quzhou after 5pm, almost 12 hours since we’d set out. As the cliche goes: ‘tired but happy’.

SOME OBSERVATIONS:

Caution, drop down

I was impressed by the organisation of the national park and especially the construction of the walking paths and guide rails. An amazing feat given the conditions under which they would have worked and the construction technology available.

I was also impressed by the number of people who made the climb – there was one elderly man who would have been at least 70.

A steaming pot of duck head stew

The general level of fitness seemed fine and very few people were overweight and none obese.

There were very few people complaining apart from those freaking out on the descent, the rest of the climbers patiently waiting to continue.

I have a newfound respect for boiling pots of tofu and ducks heads.