Feitian Mountain Scenic Area
2022-05-30
Xu Xiake, a famous traveler of Ming Dynasty (1368 A.D.–1644 A.D.), once praised: “Every inch of the land in Feitian Mountain is beautiful and every peak, spectacular.” The peaks are connected on the top and surrounded by waters, with criss-cross ravines and gullies. The landscape of Cuijiang River here can even rival that of the Lijiang River in Guilin, Guangxi Province.
Along the river, tourists can see numerous peaks featured with Danxia landform, strange stones and caves, old trees and a vast bamboo forest. This wonderful Danxia landscape has green trees all year around and flowers blooming in three seasons.
There are various tourist sites and attractions in the scenic area. The Heitan Cave is called the “First Danxia Cave”, which stretches an area of 5,000 square meters. The Natural Stone Bridge, which is regarded as the “First Door under the Sky”, is 35 meters in height and 95 meters in span with steep cliffs around, which leads to a magnificent and tranquil cave. The Liyuzhai is surrounded with steep cliffs, ancient trees and evergreen shrubs. The lifelike Shengmu Stone and Yin Yang Stone symbolize the source of life. The mysterious Wanhua Karst Cave is about 9 kilometers in length.
Danxia Landform Area
The Danxia Landform Area of Feitian Mountain covers an area of 48 square kilometers, which is 25 kilometers away from the urban area of Chenzhou City. With hilly red rock landform, the area is carved by nature into shapes of humans, animals and birds. The main type of Danxia landform in the area is fortresses, which stand in great order with red steep cliffs and green trees at the top. The top of some fortresses have been eroded into round pits.
Shenxian Fort is one of the main attractions in Feitian Mountain Scenic Area. There are canyons, stone doors, caves and karst depressions on the top.
Wanhua Stone
Wanhua Stone is a karst cave which has been developed in the lower carboniferous limestones formed about 350 to 320 million years ago. It is an underground river from north to west with a total length of about 9 kilometers with caves connected inside and the main karst cave as long as 2.245 kilo meters.
There are 13 distinctive halls in the cave, of which the largest one can accommodate up to thousands of tourists. The cave is full of stone fields, stalagmites, stalactites, columns and curtains, of which the “underwater crystalline cone” and the “granite gives birth to stalagmites” can be seen as natural wonders.
The scenery outside the cave is also impressive. A waterfall cascades down more than 50 meters from the top, forming a water curtain at the entrance. Through the water curtain, tourists can see three Chinese characters “万华岩”(Wan Hua Yan) inscribed on the top.
Hanging coffins
The hanging coffin is an intriguing funerary custom in southern Hunan, which has a history of more than 800 years with numerous hypotheses about its origin.
There are 5 caves of different sizes on the cliff, in which two wooden coffins are present. The coffins are carved out of a whole log and about 33.33 meters away from the water. The coffins remain intact and no one dares to open it so far (2008), making them more mysterious.
