Great walls of nature

[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Besides peak walls, Yangjiajie also has stone pillars, waterfalls and a special flower that changes color from white, red, purple, yellow to black from daybreak to sunset. But compared with other scenic spots in Zhangjiajie, the 34-square-kilometer Yangjiajie is like a virgin land and attracts less attention due to its steep mountains and inconvenient transportation. Many visitors to Yangjiajie have been self-guided wilderness enthusiasts.

To better promote its picturesque scenery, the local government invested 170 million yuan ($28.1 million) in a Yangjiajie cableway, and construction began in December 2012. Soon guests will be able to enjoy the peak walls from this mechanized perch, without exhausting themselves by climbing all the way.

The new cableway, the third in Wulingyuan, will make it easier to get to Yangjiajie from other scenic spots, and ease waiting lines in peak seasons by spreading tourists over more attraction sites.

In November 2010, geology and geomorphy experts from China and abroad - including Chen and Michael Crozie, who was then president of International Association of Geomorphologists - joined the Zhangjiajie Landscape International Symposium.

The experts agreed that Zhangjiajie's spectacular sandstone pillars, peaks, cliffs, valleys and caves are the result of quartz sandstone's weathering, erosion of rainwater and rock collapses due to gravity. They named this kind of landscape as Zhangjiajie Landscape, a unique type of sandstone landform.

"Yangjiajie's peak walls help us see Zhangjiajie Landscape's formation process. It's the masterpiece of nature, with great scientific and aesthetic values," Chen says. "Yangjiajie is a high-quality tourism resource. The promotion of its peak walls to the market will upgrade Zhangjiajie's tourism value as a whole," says Hu Zhiwen, vice-mayor of Zhangjiajie.

Related: Magnificent peak walls in Yangjiajie