Hiking China: glass walkways, travertine ponds and giant pandas await

A journey through China’s natural treasures reveals more than soaring mountains, serene valleys and kaleidoscopic lakes. It’s a trek where nature and culture collide, best taken one step at a time.  

Explore picturesque peaks at Nine Villages Valley. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Right from the outset, we are clearly warned: we’re on a hiking tour of China, but this is not hiking as we know it. “Hiking in China is very different from hiking in your countries,” our national tour leader Zhou Qiyu (she’s Jessie to us) explains on our first day of travel. “It means following tracks and walking up and down stairs. China is a country of stairs.” It’s a prophetic description. 

“We” are 16 travellers from many backgrounds, embarking on a two-week exploration of China’s Natural Treasures with Wendy Wu Tours. No Beijing skylines or Great Wall stones, but instead a trek through some of the planet’s most remarkable scenery with glimpses of rare wildlife. It turns out hiking in China isn’t just about stairs and vistas. It’s a journey through culture as well as wild landscapes, made accessible by modern technology and infrastructure.  

Sky-high views in Zhangjiajie 

The otherworldly pillars of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park can be viewed from the Bailong Elevator, China. (Image: Getty Images/golero)

Almost straight up, we head for the ethereal world of Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province, a UNESCO-listed realm of mist-shrouded quartz sandstone pillars, rugged cliffs and plunging canyons. Thousands of columns – sculpted over millennia through tectonic uplift and erosion – thrust skyward, their sheer faces softened by tenacious pines clinging improbably to the rock.  

It’s a landscape so surreal it inspired the floating Hallelujah Mountains in the movie Avatar. We explore by trams, cable car and on foot, weaving through forest and drifting cloud, yet hardly scratch the surface of this vast park. 

Rain sets in, but Jessie assures us water signifies money in China, so we’re clearly acquiring wealth, and too awed to be deterred by mere moisture. Poncho-clad, we ascend 7.5 kilometres up Tianmen Mountain in one of the world’s longest cable cars.  

At the summit, a valiant procession of damp souls skirts the cliff edges on glass walkways, weaving around foggy corners to reach a massive natural stone archway known as Heaven’s Gate. The heavy mist means the thrill (or jarring reality, choose your poison) of being on a ledge on a cliff face nearly 1500 metres from ground is diminished, but perhaps that’s a good thing.  

Exploring ponds and peaks in Nine Villages Valley 

Long Lake at Nine Villages Valley, Sichuan. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Another world of surreal beauty awaits in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Jiuzhaigou, or the Nine Villages Valley, was little-known until the mid-1970s when it was accidentally discovered by a lumberjack. Another designated UNESCO World Heritage site, the area is famed for its multi-coloured travertine ponds formed from calcium deposits. They cascade down the mountain in shimmering gold and turquoise ribbons, inspiring its name, Huanglong – ‘Yellow Dragon’. 

The valley boasts magnificent travertine pools. (Image: Christine Aldred)

It’s an exuberance of colour: impossibly azure lakes mirroring snow-tipped peaks, and diverse forests that pop with vibrant marigold yellows and golds as autumn begins to take hold. 

It’s here the mind-boggling scale of Chinese tourism comes into focus. Paths swarm with people, but no one is impatient. We join the throngs in good spirits and allow ourselves to be whisked up and down the mountains in a steady procession of green buses. In an area visited by up to a capped 41,000 tourists a day, the logistics, in all their “squishy glory” as a fellow traveller observes, are almost as extraordinary as the scenery. 

Hiking through Black Mountain Valley 

The Yu-Qian Boundary Bridge sits within Black Mountain Valley. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Respite comes at Heishan Valley, or Black Mountain Valley, just two hours from Chongqing, China’s largest city and home to 34 million people. Astonishingly, it feels like not a single one of them thought to visit, so we have the entire park to ourselves. Even the cable car is roused from slumber to carry us down a gully where our walk begins.  

Cascading falls at Black Mountain Valley. (Image: Christine Aldred)

A 13-kilometre gorge trail winds through dense forest, over wooden bridges, past tumbling waterfalls and streams – sometimes gushing, sometimes roaring. Wobbly suspension bridges, metal holds and ropes hint at its canyoning appeal, but I’m all about the gentle meander. The reserve – a natural gene bank – is home to more than 1800 plant species and elusive wildlife. And today, it’s all for us. 

Faith and folklore  

The Dazu Caves carvings date from the ninth to 13th centuries. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Across China, nature and spirituality entwine. Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian ideas, along with folk-religious traditions, have merged over centuries, creating landscapes imbued with myth and ancestral presence. They’re places for devotion, reflection and a good dose of fresh air. 

This melding of spirituality and landscape is exemplified at the dazzling Dazu Caves, where intricate sculptures carved into cliffs more than 800 years ago depict Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian deities side by side, telling stories of life, death and seeking enlightenment. 

At He Long Park, we stop at a statue and tomb honouring the Chinese military leader for whom the park is named, but I must admit I’m more enamoured with a glorious grove of ginkgo trees a little beyond, the fan-shaped leaves of these ancient survivors glowing pine-lime in the muted light.  

Even in high-rise cities, nature endures. In Chengdu’s People’s Park, locals stroll under trees, take tea by the water or watch traditional dance performances. At Matchmakers’ Corner on sheets of pink and blue, hopeful parents post profiles of their single children, spruiking their charms and even financial assets, a time-honoured tradition still thriving in the digital age. 

Unforgettable cultural performances 

A man sings on Baofeng Lake as sampan boats drift by. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Wherever we travel, cultural depth is on display. Performances showcase regional dance, music and folklore, cuisines shift with regions and domestic tourists dress in traditional outfits for photo ops against dramatic backdrops.  

On the emerald waters of Baofeng Lake, songs from our sampan summon a boy, or girl, depending on who’s singing, a playful nod to a Tjuila folktale. In Tibetan Jiuzhaigou, multi-coloured banners flutter and golden prayer wheels spin in mountain streams, releasing their prayers downstream into the universe, a practice from the ancient Bon religion that predates Buddhism. 

Witness cultural shows such as the Sichuan opera in Chengdu. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Each night in Zhangjiajie, the valley of Tianmen Mountain takes centre stage in a spectacular open-air cultural performance – The Fox Fairy Show – against a backdrop of cliffs and forest. In the hands of the musical director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it fuses myth, drama and musical theatre. Hundreds of performers bring the legend to life: a village lights up the mountainside, foxes prance, spirits rise and a 72-strong choir in tinkling costumes fills the valley with voice. Wrapped in a rainbow of plastic ponchos, the audience becomes part of the landscape. 

Must-see wildlife in China 

Spot squirrels in the valley. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Apparently China’s national parks teem with wildlife, though spotting it isn’t easy in such vast terrain. In Zhangjiajie, the notoriously mischievous macaques that usually patrol the paths are missing in action, clearly smart enough to seek cover on rainy days. At Black Mountain Valley, langur monkeys elude me too, but rustling branches and calls in the tree canopy assure me they’re near. 

Jiuzhaigou National Park is home to more than 220 bird species, a handful of which I spot along with butterflies and a cheeky squirrel. Pandas and golden snub-nosed monkeys live here too, though glimpses are rare. 

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is home to roughly 120 pandas. (Image: Christine Aldred)

Meeting some of China’s national treasures in all their black and white furry cuteness is assured at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, with red pandas to boot. It’s a popular place, so brace for crowds, especially when one of the stars stirs – usually for food. Around 120 pandas live here. Gentle Bing Bing isn’t fussy about her food and loves cleanliness while Ya Zai searches out the tastiest shoots. 

An endearing resident of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. (Image: Christine Aldred)

It’s surprising to learn pandas have been around for roughly 8 million years, given their finicky diets and less-than-efficient approach to reproduction. Solitary by nature, fertile for just a few days each year and with diminishing bamboo habitats, their future relies on dedicated breeding programs. Fortunately, their numbers are slowly on the rise, with around 1900 pandas now living in the wild in China, each tracked and monitored. 

Ease of access

While China’s sprawling landscapes and the myths surrounding them may be ancient, technology is making them more accessible. The bullet train from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou in Tibet, opened late 2024, is a dazzling feat of engineering, cutting through mountains at up to 200 kilometres an hour and slicing hours off the previous road trip. It’s a small example of China’s immense new web of roads, railways and power grids opening up once-remote regions to travellers. 

This blend of nature and innovation continues at Zhangjiajie, where glass and steel meet ancient stone. Step – tentatively if you must – across the transparent skywalk bridge a dizzying 300 metres above an ancient canyon and watch the world below slide by beneath your slippered feet.  

On the other side, don VR glasses in a stationary hot-air balloon basket to drift virtually through soaring peaks and deep gorges, or zip up to the real land of floating mountains in a glass elevator in the blink of an eye. You can even shoot down an 897-metre escalator straight through Tianmen Mountain as an easy way home. 

A touching goodbye 

On our last evening over a celebratory Cantonese-style banquet, Jessie tells a final joke – fittingly featuring one of those beloved, but in this case rogue, pandas. She gifts each of us, her most recently acquired “family members”, a bookmark in the form of a delicate leaf from a banyan tree – the tree of Chongqing, her hometown and our departure-lounge city. Its filigree veins have been delicately exposed and decorated with traditional Chinese ink brushwork, an exquisite fusion of nature and artistry. 

It’s an apt metaphor for our journey: centuries of culture layered over the raw beauty of the natural world – best discovered, perhaps, on foot, even with crowds, rain and mist. Actually, especially with mist. 

A Traveller’s Checklist 

Getting there  

China Southern Airlines offers full-service flights to China from Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin via its Guangzhou hub and other cities multiple times per day or week. Premium Economy provides extra space and priority attention while Business Class offers lounge access, a flat-lay bed and free-flowing drinks.  

Playing there  

The 16-day Natural Treasures of China Go Beyond Group Tour with Wendy Wu Tours includes return economy airfares and meals, served ‘family style’ on spinning table trays, with scope to try local foods independently. Many activities are included but local cultural shows are optional extras: don’t miss The Fox Fairy Show in the Tianmen Mountain valley. RRP $8980 per person based on a twin share. 

Need to know  

• Australians can enter China without a visa for stays up to 30 days, until December 2026. 

• Power banks must be marked CCC approved or will be confiscated at airport security.  

• Access to social media and Google-driven sites is restricted in China, but some eSIMs such as Holafly enable access and offer unlimited data to keep you connected while travelling.  

• Coffee is not the same as in Australia so embrace the tea, excellent and varied.