Silk Road Photo Gallery
Shuimo Danxia National Park (Part 2)

Just beyond Lanzhou's suburbs is a natural attraction well worth visiting. In fact, it was the main reason why I ended up including this city on the itinerary. Shuimo Danxia was formed about 150 million years ago during the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. The red sandstone was eroded into the colourful mountain landscapes we see today.

The site is vast but they have set up a lot of paths and routes so you will not be hiking in the wild.

Prices vary with the most expensive SVIP ticket (288 yuan) including private transport so you can travel the entire loop in luxury. The standard fare (80 yuan) requires you to change various types of transport and there are gaps in between where you need to walk, and you won't be able to see the full loop with a large section of the park not reachable at all. Even with the cheaper standard ticket, I doubt you can see all that is available on a ticket in a full day either as the hiking paths are long and you have to backtrack to catch the transport out.

After exploring the upper section of the park, I returned back the way I came. From the end of the train-like bus, take a 20 minute walk to your right (#5) along a scenic road to reach the shuttle bus to the next viewpoint (#6). There are small vehicles you can rent to save the walk if you are on a standard ticket, but I suggest walking as the scenery is breathtaking. You get a very wide view of the colourful mountains and the perspective is a bit different.

There seem to be a lot of other adventure activities under construction. The zip-line was already open and you will fly parallel to the road.

The Nine-Colour Painting viewpoint (#6) stands at 1748m above sea level and you can take the stairs to descend further down. The rocks come in many colours as they comprise over 30 types of minerals.

By the time I finished, it was well past 2pm and I had a very exhausting half day trip. This park is immense and they try hard to make transport more difficult for standard ticket holders but the SVIP is unreasonably expensive and over 3 times the price, so I was still content with the views on the cheaper itinerary, albeit it was a lot of walking!