Our driver was late. We arrived in the lobby, bags packed, grabbed some bread from a local restaurant and checked with the staff that our car was on its way. Google translated their response that our 09:00 driver would arrive for us at 6 p.m.
There was a moment of shocked silence.
No, no, now, and after a stressful 20 minutes, he arrived. Not quite screeching to a halt outside the hostel, but not far off, his small red car emblazoned with “Devil May Cry” perhaps a sign of what was to come. Devil May Cry might have been plastered on one side of the car, but he’s obviously got a deal on a second sign, as yrC yaM liveD on the other side of the car took me a moment to figure out.
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EASIEST WAY TO VISIT
This 3 day tour is a glorious way to visit both Huanglong and Juizhaigou – you’ll get to see the top spots in both of these stunning National Parks!
For 400 Yuan he was going to take on us the spectacular drive over the 4,000-metre mountain pass to Huanglong. He’d wait for us and at the end of the day get us to the Jiuzhai – Huanglong airport, where we’d take a flight to Chongqing for the next part of the Chinese adventure.
It is a glorious drive out of the Jiuzhaigou valley, and then over the mountains to Huanglong. Just magnificent.
Once you get out of the 9 bends of the Jiuzhaigou valley and you’ve overtaken a bus, a Range Rover, and everything in between then the roads are quiet, the scenery awe-inspiring and just vast.
About 2 hours and 20 minutes later we arrived in Huanglong, our driver helped us purchase cable car tickets, and National Park Tickets and made sure that we knew where to meet him at 4 pm. It’s not necessary to get the cable car, you can walk into the area, but this is all at altitude.
We’d been at altitude for a while, steadily climbing, from our entry into China at Hekou at 100 meters, to Kunming, at 1,900 meters, then onto Dali (2,200 meters), Lijiang (3,000 meters), then Shangri La (3,300 meters), our flight to Chengdu meant we were down at 500 meters for two days, but the bus journey to Jiuzhaigou took us back to 2,000 meters. Huanglong base is at 3,200 meters, and the top of the park is at 3,600 meters. We were taking the cable car up.
It’s another not-cheap day, with tickets to the park standing at 230 Yuan and the cable car a further 80 Yuan. But it’s worth it. Step out of the cable car, walk a few meters and you’ll find the first oxygen station. Oxygen is free, you just need to pay for the bag to carry it in. This was the first of three that we spotted. There are also toilets everywhere. I’ve never seen so many toilets.
Perhaps the oxygen and the toilets are because of the age of the visitors. This was definitely an older person’s park and after weeks of bringing up the average age, we were taking it well down.
A few more metres saunter and you reach the first viewing platform. Wow. Just wow. And silence. There weren’t too many people here, and those that were here were helpful, there was always someone offering to take a photo, they were polite and folks waited for others to take photos before they took their own. It was quiet. There were no yelled conversations. no barging around. Quite the opposite to yesterday in Jiuzhaigou.
Huanglong is likened to Yellowstone because of the colorful pools of water cascadng down the hillside. And it truly is lovely. The water here is cold, not sulphur heated like the US National Park, its clear. It’s plentiful. There are the usual food vendors throughout the park, but a distinct lack of tacky things to buy. Horrors, no Chinese swords.
After the first viewpoint, it’s a couple of kilometers walk along flattish boardwalks. There’s a climb of a few hundred meters to reach the colorful pool, but taking it slow meant it was pretty easy and then it’s downhill all the way to the exit.
We took a very very leisurely 4 hours to wander down. Photographing everything, stopping and just looking and enjoying the peace and quiet.
Huanglong is well laid out. It was quiet when we went. You don’t need more than 4 hours to see it (unless you plan on walking in and up to the top and back down again). The scenery was magnificent, and the fellow parkgoers quiet, polite, and generally very helpful. I’ll let the pictures of the park tell you the rest.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites in China
If you like visiting UNESCO World Heritage Sites, then our guides to these Chinese World Heritage sites will be useful
- How to Visit Huanglong National Park [the Yellowstone of China]
- Discover Xian’s Terracotta Army
- How to Visit The Great Wall of China – [Independent Public Transit Route]
- The Forbidden City of Beijing
- The Historic Center of Macau
- Jiuzhaigou National Park
- Huangshan National Park and Sacred Mountain
- Wulingyuan and the Zhangjiajie National Park
- The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries
- Tiger Leaping Gorge
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One thought on “How to Visit Huanglong National Park [the Yellowstone of China]”
I went on the last day of off peak season, there was no cable car or oxygen, but this meant there were also hardly any people. The altitude made my packet of Cucumber flavoured Lays crisps explode on the bus ride there. It was a tough walk up, on a limited time frame to get back to the bus, wondering if I was even going to see anything spectacular as it was quite dry winter, but holy moly, once I made it to the top it was absolutely worth it. I was sad that none of my friends answered my FaceTime call to share in the experience, but I found a new friend in another solo traveller at the top, who then became my personal tour guide when I went to Chongqing. I hope one day I will be able to go again when Huanglong is in its full glory.