Today The Wandelgek visited another part of the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. After a quick shower, breakfast and an early pickup, he drove to the spectacular:

Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon

Although the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon is a part of the Zhangjiaje National Forest Park, it is not a part of the core scenic area, like e.g. Yuanjiajie, Tianzishan, Yangjiajie, The Golden Whipstream, Ten Miles Gallery and Huangshi Village are.

Visitor Center

At the visitor center was a large maquette of the canyon and the glass bridge …

Zhangjiajie Glass footpath is a skywalk bridge in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, above the Wulingyuan area. The bridge, built as an attraction for tourists, is glass-bottomed and is transparent. When it opened it was the longest and tallest glass bottomed bridge in the world. The bridge, opened to the public on 20 August 2016, measures 430 metres (1,410 ft) in total length and 6 metres (20 ft) in width, and is suspended about 300 metres (980 ft) above the ground.

There was information on boards showing activities and terrain …

The tour guide below shows the routes toward some of the spectacular adrenaline junkie activities in the area …

A map of the area…

The Canyon

From the visitor center it was a short walk toward the actual bridge and the canyon. These were the first views over the canyon:

There had been some soft showers this morning and mist shrouds were moving through the canyon.

My throw away raincoat came in handy…

The mist shrouds made the viws more interesting …

Beneath was a small lake …

There were lots of wooden walking galleries on the lake shores and boats were ready to transport tourists into the canyon…

The Bridge

The bridge spans the canyon between two mountain cliffs in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in the northwest of Hunan province. It is designed to carry up to 800 visitors at a time. The bridge was designed by Israeli architect Haim Dotan.

Toward both bridge ends, the bridge gets wider. In the center it is only one lane of glass panels wide, but at both ends ot widens to 3 lanes of glass panels. Beneath is visible how the bridge gets narrower …

To build the bridge, engineers erected four support pillars on the edges of the walls of the canyon. Beneath you see two of those…

The bridge is made of a metal frame with more than 120 glass panels…

Each of these panels is three-layered and is a 5.1-centimetre-thick (2 in) slab of tempered glass…

There are three long swings attached to the underside of the bridge.

Bungee jump

There is also a provision for making a 285-metre (935 ft) bungee jump, considered to be the highest bungee jump in the world.

As a visitor of the glass bridge, The Wandelgek was able to see several spectacular jumps through the glass floor …

After this huge jump, the jumpers were hauled in slowly.

This photo was taken near to the canyon wall and it shows the sheer depth of the canyon and the spectacularism of the jumps that had to be executed…

There were platforms and stairs/steps, beneath the bridge, probably for maintenance purposes …

Seen from the right angle, photo’s of these stairs leading into nowhere could lead to quite funny results …

According to the Management Committee of the Bridge, the bridge has set ten world records spanning its design and construction. The record as longest glass bridge has since passed to a glass bridge in the Grand Canyon Scenic Area, Hebei.

Seen from either side of the bridge, it really is a remarkable architectural feat …

Before entering the bridge, protecting “socks” are provided to put over your shoes …

Having crossed the glass bridge, it was time to return to the other side again.

Another spectacular activity at the canyon was:

Ziplining

There were elevators from the glass bridge’s level to the level of the zip lining platforms.

These elevators looked like the Bailong elevator, just much less high…

The zip lining could be seen from the bridge and looked really spectacular. The Wandelgek was too heavy (max. body weight was I think 70 kilos) though to be allowed a go on that zip line.😲

Would have loved doing that. Too scared for the bungee jump, but this looked doable.

The mist in the canyon was beautiful …

Loved how the layers of mountains diffuse in the distance …After watching these spectacular activities, The Wandelgek walked back toward the visitor center …

A last views on the canyon …

What I really loved about Gaby, my guide for this travel section, was that she always was like: “Hey have you tried this dish or did you try that desert or those snacks?” She always brought some snacks and also fruit for on the road consumption. That way I was motivated to try a lot, like e.g. these typical Chinese snacks, which I could have easily missed:

This one tasted like a cake roll with a fruity sweet jam in between…