Chinese on the glass bridge. Glass bridges in China and the sensations of walking across them. Glass observation decks and trails
Fans of extreme sports and unusual types of entertainment should take a walk along the glass bridge in China. Made entirely of glass, it creates the impression of floating above the abyss - just look at your feet. There are similar structures in other countries of the world, but it is Chinese bridge- the longest. The glass bridge is located 180 meters above the Pingyang Valley and connects the two Mountain peaks.
However, a glass bridge is nothing new for China. Previously, they had already built a glass bridge that goes around Tianmen Mountain in national park Zhangjiajie National Forest Park.
SO THERE ARE TWO GLASS BRIDGES? LET'S UNDERSTAND!
Glass Bridge on Tianmen Mountain built on the territory of China's Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, which is located in Hunan province. The length of the bridge is about 70 meters and it is located at an altitude of 1900 meters. The bridge goes around Tianmen Mountain and reaches Zhangjiajie Mountain, which provides an amazing view of the beauty of the natural park.
Glass Bridge on Tianmen Mountain
Glass bridge over Pingyang Valley is located at an altitude of 180 meters. Its length is about 300 meters, and it connects two mountain peaks. The sides and floor are made of especially durable three-layer glass, which is 25 times stronger than usual. Such a bridge will withstand any load - no matter how hard the tourists jump, engineers assure. Its design is resistant to temperature changes of 60 degrees Celsius and wind speeds of up to 220 km/h. However, even knowing about the reliability of the bridge, tourists who set foot on it are often afraid to look down. After all, an abyss opens up under your feet and it feels as if you are walking on air. That is why the attraction was nicknamed the “air trail”. The staff working near the bridge helps to overcome this path, of course laughing at the unlucky tourists stuck right in the middle of the bridge in a panic attack :) Are you feeling weak?
Glass bridge over the Pingyang Valley.
ZHANGJIAJIE NATIONAL FOREST PARK
Independent travelers will find it easy to find this park on world maps:
What else to see in Zhangjiajie National Park?
Of course, Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is famous not only for its glass bridge. This is one of the most beautiful parks in China, which has been under the protection of UNESCO since the late 90s. Local nature not only captivated thousands of tourists from all over the world, but also became a source of inspiration for the award-winning director James Cameron. He specially came here to admire the stone pillars, which eventually became the prototype of the floating mountains in the acclaimed film “Avatar”.
Besides stone pillars and glass path, Zhangjiajie Park has many attractions that deserve attention:
1. Mountains. They are especially beautiful in the morning when they are covered with a thick layer of fog.
2. The staircase to Huanshi Mountain is 3800 steps high, leading to the aerial path.
3. Elevator "Hundred Dragons". The highest altitude lift in the world, lifting tourists 330 meters above the ground. Its transparent walls and ceiling provide views of all local attractions.
4. The cable car to Mount Tianji, stretching 7445 m, is the highest and longest in the whole world.
5. "Heavenly Highway" 11 km of dangerous mountain serpentine with more than 100 sharp turns.
6. A network of caves, including the four-level Yellow Lion Cave at an altitude of over 1000 m.
OPENING SCHEDULE AND PRICES
You can walk along the glass bridge on Tianmen Mountain every day from 7:00 to 18:00 - at this time the last cable car leaves for the bridge. But you can enter Zhangjiajie Park itself later; if you wish, you can even stay in the national park for the night, staying in one of the hotels located there.
Park entrance fee depends on the age and social status of the visitor:
1. An adult 3-day pass costs 248 yuan, including insurance - 3 yuan.
2. For students under 24 years old and children under 1.2 m tall, a three-day pass will cost 163 yuan. Young people must show a student ID to receive a discount. If it does not indicate the date of birth, you must additionally present your passport.
3. Special benefits are provided to disabled people of groups I and II, war veterans and military personnel, as well as pensioners over 70 years of age. The cost of a three-day pass for these categories of visitors is 68 yuan.
The ticket price includes: entrance to the park and travel around the territory for regular buses. Elevators, funiculars, trams, cave tours are paid separately.
In addition, at the entrance to the park it is recommended to buy a map, without which it will be difficult to navigate the large area. Its cost is 5 yuan.
According to our readers (Andrew): 300m bridge over Pingyang Valley is not located within the park, it is separate standing mountain Tianji and this mountain ticket must be purchased separately and costs another 270 yuan.
Glass Bridge on Tianmen Mountain
HOW TO GET THERE
BY PLANE
Near Zhangjiajie Nature Park there are two small towns – Zhangjiajie And Wulingyuan. You can get to them by plane from any large city: Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, but it is cheaper and faster to fly from Shanghai.
BY TRAIN
From any smaller city in central China it is cheaper to travel by train. True, you will have to go through several connections.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
In addition, Zhangjiajie town can be reached by bus from Changshi and Fnghuang, which are located relatively nearby.
Once you reach Zhangjiajie or Wulingyuan, you should take a bus to the park. It departs from the bus station and takes about 1 hour. Ticket price is about 12 yuan. The bus will arrive at the bus station, from which you will need to walk a few minutes to the entrance to the national park.
TAXI
A more comfortable and faster way is a taxi, which will cost 100-200 yuan, but will deliver you exactly to your destination. The only negative is that Chinese taxi drivers do not speak English, which can create difficulties when explaining where to go. It is better to have a booklet with you with the name of the park or show it on the screen of your smartphone to avoid misunderstandings with the driver. Also, be sure to make sure that the taxi driver turns on the meter, otherwise a dishonest driver will try to deceive you.
Before your trip, you can check the cost of tickets from Shanghai to Zhangjiajie (Dayong Airport) on Skyscanner.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE GLASS BRIDGE
1. Few cleaners are willing to clean glass after every tourist. Therefore, to keep it clean and transparent, when entering the bridge, visitors are asked to wear special fabric shoe covers.
2. In order to follow the air path, a strong nervous system is required. There are times when tourists faint from fear. Therefore, another name for the bridge is “trail of horror.”
3. Specially trained employees are on duty at the entrance to the glass bridge, who help particularly impressionable visitors cross to the other side. People often panic when they cannot see the floor under their feet, and in this case, moral support comes in handy.
Glass bridge in China, which opened in September this year, cracked right under the feet of tourists. Many people who risk walking across a glass bridge at an altitude of several hundred meters, without unnecessary shocks, experience extreme excitement and fear, since the glass under their feet does not seem as strong as it actually is. After the incident, tourists began to panic.
It all happened after one of the tourists dropped a metal thermos with water. The impact caused cracks to appear on the glass. Eyewitnesses of the incident say that a loud sound and unusual vibrations were suddenly heard, after which the glass began to crack under their feet. The tourists who were in this place screamed and ran away from the bridge. It all looked like a scene from some action movie. However, things did not go further than cracks. The bridge did not collapse or collapse, and no people were injured in the incident.
The bridge builders claim that the bridge is very reliable and can withstand a load of 800 kilograms per square meter. In addition, the bridge deck consists of three layers of durable glass, each of which is 24 millimeters thick. When the metal thermos was struck, only one layer was damaged. The bridge is currently closed to visitors while repairs to the damaged section are underway.
The glass bridge in Hunan province has recently become a real landmark. The bridge was built in the Yuntai Mountains. For many, walking across such a bridge seems like a real extreme journey. The glass deck of the bridge creates the feeling of walking on air at a great height.
Video. Longest glass bridge in China
Glass bridge in China photo
The mountains of the Wulinshan Range and the town of Zhangjiajie, lost in them, have existed since time immemorial. But only recently, walks through places with surreal landscapes among these mountains have become especially popular among tourists.
In contact with
This was facilitated by fantastic shots of soaring peaks depicting the planet Pandora in J. Cameron’s film “Avatar”, which were filmed in these very places. Curious tourists flocked to the Chinese province of Hunan, where on an area of almost 500 square meters. kilometers, spread out National Park Zhangjiajie. But, since the road to the reserve was not easy, the excitement gradually subsided. For the time being.
Grand Canyon Bridge, Zhangjiajie Park, Hunan Province
The second wave of tourist flow began in August 2016. It was then that an extreme attraction opened on the territory of the forest - a glass bridge over the gorge, suspended on dizzying heights above ground and called the "Grand Canyon".
Parameters of the Grand Canyon Bridge
Today it is. The parameters of the structure are impressive:
- height above the ground – 300 meters;
- the width of the pedestrian part of the bridge is 6 meters;
- passage length – 430 meters;
- design capacity – 8000 people per daylight hours;
- load-bearing capacity – up to 800 people at a time;
- construction material: 120 panels of 3-layer heavy-duty glass;
- additional attraction: the world's highest jumping platform, located under the central span of the bridge at an altitude of almost 270 meters above the ground.
Author of the bridge project
The author of the project is Israeli architect Haim Dotan, whose creations are well known in China. Being an adherent of the concept of merging architectural objects with nature, he came up with such a unique bridge, which, in his words, is intended to become not just “a jumper for moving from point A to point B,” but a natural scene with the illusion of floating in the clouds. In the future, it is planned not only to organize dance shows on the transition parade ground, but also to open an amphitheater with 3,000 seats at its final point for holding various kinds of shows.
Bridge safety
Fragility of the structure, of course, is illusory. The bridge went through rigorous testing for structural integrity, temperature endurance and wind resistance. Eyewitnesses say that to check the safety of the structure, they not only performed a crash test on it, but also allowed a heavy car to drive over the glass. The structure did not flinch. And now neither raging hurricanes, nor heavy precipitation, nor even the lively dances of several hundred stomping heels will destroy the glass bridge in . The photo demonstrates its strength.
But everyone can get their share of adrenaline from the bridge. A crystal path with a transparent bottom attracts daredevils from all over the world to take a walk over the abyss in the mountains. Having experienced pleasure hanging over the abyss, tourists rush to other corners of the park, fraught with passages through forests, crossings cable car and the descent in a glass elevator from the mountain.
Twiddling Dragon Trail, Zhangjiajie Park, Hunan Province
And, if extreme glass over the abyss is not enough, then the Zhangjiajie Nature Reserve will offer crystal lovers another interesting trek. This time - over a cliff. By the way, it also opened to the public only in August 2016.
Walking along the undulating corridor, tightly adjacent to the Tianmen rock and repeating all its curves, you can get an unforgettable experience. To some they will seem like happiness at the edge of the clouds, and to others like fatal minutes of walking on the edge of an abyss. But no one will remain indifferent.
Bridge technical characteristics
Specifications this miracle is much more modest than that of the Grand Canyon. Although both glass bridges are located in the same park, they are the complete opposite of each other. Thus, the “Writhing Dragon” is 1.6 meters wide, the glass thickness is 6.5 cm, and the length of the passage is only about 100 meters. In the absence of a flow of people, you can even run these meters half-bent, if not for one “but”. The fact is that the “Dragon” hovers at an altitude of 1430 meters above the ground.
Feelings above the bottomless abyss
When entering the bridge even the most courageous begin to get goosebumps and dizziness from the bottomless abyss when looking down. There's no time for running here! Somehow I would get there without incident, tenaciously holding on to the handrails. Those who are not afraid and walk across the bridge this not at all long distance with their eyes wide open will be able to capture in their lenses frames of indescribable beauty, where peaks and gorges alternate with a mysterious haze, and the stone slopes of the cliffs smoothly turn into green caps of peaks.
To ensure safe passage, all tourists are given special anti-slip shoe covers, which also serve as covers for dirty street shoes. This measure helps preserve the glass sidewalk transparent and clean for a long time.
Heroes' Bridge, Shinyuzhai Park, Hunan Province
The tour of the glass bridges of China will continue with another masterpiece of fragile architecture - the Bridge of Heroes, located in the Shinyuzhai National Geological Park in the same Hunan province, 46 km from the city of Pingyang and 112 km northeast of the provincial capital - Changsha.
This is an earlier example of bridge architecture. Was opened to the public in 2015. Old-timers say that this passage through the valley, connecting the two peaks of the mountain, existed before, but only in wooden form. That’s why it didn’t particularly tickle the nerves of pedestrians. But after reconstruction, when it was dressed in crystal, the suspension bridge became the number 1 attraction in the park. Still would! The parameters are serious:
- length – 300 meters;
- width – 1.5 meters;
- glass thickness – 24 mm;
- height above ground – 180 meters;
- withstands temperature changes up to 60 o C and wind speeds up to 230 km per hour.
Many wanted to test their courage and “touch” the height of the 58-story building. Only here the house is not with reinforced concrete floors, but with glass floors from top to bottom! Bridge of Brave People - there is no other way to say it!
U-shaped bridge on Yuntai Mountain, Henan Province
This is another adrenaline trail that is very popular among tourists. Located in Henan Province. This is the same province that is famous for its grottoes near the city of Luoyang. But do not confuse it with Hunan, where the other three bridges described above are located.
The U-shaped passage that follows the contour of Yuntai Mountain in the Yuntai Mountain Range is a blood-stirring attraction. It received its first visitors in September 2015. But not even a month had passed since the opening day when the bridge showed its capricious character. While it was filled to capacity with people, a steel flask belonging to one of the tourists fell onto the glass surface. The floor under pedestrians' feet instantly covered with cracks. Fortunately, only the first layer of super-strong three-layer glass broke. Everything went well, but you can imagine the horror that gripped the people, because they were at an altitude of almost 1100 meters.
Since then, people are not allowed onto others and onto this glass bridge over the abyss with metal objects, and they are asked to take off their high-heeled shoes.
In the south of China, another creepy glass bridge has opened over a cliff, along which only the bravest and bravest tourists walk along the cliff to the mountainside rugged with caves.
The bridge, called "Writhing Dragon", which leads to Tianmen Mountain, opened to the public on August 1. The length of the glass path is 100 meters, the width is just over one and a half meters. Tourists can see a truly dizzying view of the valley on the other side of the mountain range. The bridge hangs at an altitude of 1500 meters above the ground. This is the third such bridge on the same mountain. More recently, it was an ordinary wooden path.
This mountainous area is very popular among tourists due to its incredible natural scenery, as well as a relatively new attraction - glass bridges.
The photographs show how the first visitors to the opened bridge carefully walk along the mountain, holding on to the wall, some trying not to look down through the transparent floor and over the railings.
The first glass bridge in the national mountains forest park Zhangjiajie opened in November 2011 and has since attracted tourists eager to experience what it's like to walk on the very edge of an abyss. The glass floor was then only 2.5 inches (6 cm) thick, and visitors were visibly nervous when they stepped on it.
The second glass bridge across the canyon in the national park opened in May of this year. It reportedly cost approximately $3.5 million to build.
For those who want a more intense sensation, here you can bungee jump into the abyss.
Now glass bridges- a popular trend in China. Usually local authorities perceive them as an opportunity to increase the influx of tourists. These ambitious projects typically involve bridges, bluff paths, or observation decks.
Below are the five most popular glass bottom designs in China.
The observation deck with a glass floor is located on the territory of the famous Shilin stone forest, 70 kilometers from Beijing. Its height is 400 meters above the ground, and its area is 415 square meters. It opened in May 2016.
The glass bridge, 300 meters above Zhangjiajie Canyon in Hunan Province, was scheduled to open in July 2016. Its length is 430 meters, height is about 300 meters.
"Hero's Bridge" lies 180 meters above the ground and is located in Shinyuzhai National Park in Hunan Province. It opened last fall.
The 260-meter-long Yuntai Mountain Trail passes at an altitude of more than 1,000 meters above the ground. It was also opened in September 2015.
The Yunduan Glass Observation Deck is located more than 700 meters above the ground. It opened in the summer of 2015.
Here, short video about how tourists manage to walk across such bridges. Spoiler alert: they're a little worried.
A video from China is gaining popularity on the Internet, in which a man walking along a glass bridge falls in panic when cracks begin to creep along the glass under his feet. Fortunately, everything turned out okay - the cracks turned out to be just an ingenious special effect added to one of the sections of the bridge.
Footage of a man whose feet cracked the surface of a glass bridge located along Taihang Mountain has captured the attention of Chinese social networks, reports the website Mashable. You can watch how the hero of the video, noticing the cracks, falls on the glass in fear and tries to crawl away.
A man not expecting a trick, presumably a tour guide, leads a group of people.
Suddenly, cracks begin to appear under his feet.
The guide falls onto the glass screaming, but cracks continue to creep under his hands. The man tries to crawl away in panic.
The video instantly spread across a large number of Chinese media.
Fortunately, the cracks that frightened the pedestrian turned out to be just the result of the work of special panels installed on one of the sections of the bridge located at an altitude of 1,200 meters. The panels react to pedestrian steps, displaying images of creeping cracks and emitting a characteristic sound.
The bridge, located along a steep cliff, offers an impressive view.
The East Taihang County government issued an official apology, explaining that the cracking glass was just an effect added by designers for the purpose of “provocation.” The administration does not intend to dismantle the panels that frighten pedestrians and hopes that a good dose of adrenaline will help attract additional tourists.
“The effect is too realistic, it’s actually a little scary.”
“The cores can die here.”