· Street View & Discovery · 2 min read ·
Tianmen Mountain: The Heaven’s Gate Road of Hunan
Mountain peak in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China. Accessible by a thrilling road with 99 hairpin bends leading to Heaven’s Gate, a natural arch high above the clouds.
Mountain in China
Tianmen Mountain (simplified Chinese: 天门山; traditional Chinese: 天門山; pinyin: Tiānmén Shān; lit. ‘Heaven’s Gate Mountain’) is a mountain located within Tianmen Mountain National Park, Zhangjiajie, in the northwestern part of Hunan Province, China.
A cablecar was constructed in 2005 by the French company Poma from nearby Zhangjiajie railway station to the top of the mountain. Tianmen Mountain Cableway is claimed in tourist publications as the “longest passenger cableway of high mountains in the world”, with 98 cars and a total length of 7,455 m (24,459 ft) and ascent of 1,279 m (4,196 ft). The highest gradient is 37 degrees. Tourists can walk on kilometers of paths built along the cliff face at the top of the mountain, including sections with glass floors. An 11 km (7 mi) road – Tongtian Avenue – with 99 bends also reaches the top of the mountain and takes visitors to Tianmen cave natural arch in the mountain of a height of 131.5 m (431.4 ft). As with the mountain, the cave translates as Heaven’s Door/天门 and has a 999 step entrance known as “the Stairway to Heaven.”
The Tianmenshan Temple is located on the summit, with chairlift or footpath access. The original temple there was built during the Tang dynasty and destroyed during the first part of the 20th century. In 1949, as the Chinese Communist Revolution neared its end, construction of a new temple, with Tang dynasty architecture, began; the temple now sits on landscaped grounds covering 2 hectares (4.9 acres).
In 2007, Alain Robert scaled the cliff below the arch, bare-handed and without protection; a plaque commemorates his feat.
