Mount Fanjing is the highest peak in Guizhou at 2,570 metres and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed in 2018 as a natural site of outstanding universal value. The mountain is an ancient refugium — isolated by its height from the valleys below, it has preserved plant and animal species that disappeared elsewhere when the climate changed. The Guizhou golden monkey lives here and nowhere else in China outside the Wuling range.
The ascent takes most visitors three to four hours via the cable car to the upper station and then the 8,888-step staircase to the summit temples. The forest on the lower slopes is dense red fir and birch, giving way above the treeline to rocky heath. The summit geology — the two rock pillars with temples balanced on top — is unlike anything else in the province. Clouds regularly sit below the summit, isolating it from the valley; on those days the view from the top is of temple rooftops above a sea of white, which is the version most people come to see.
The bus from Tongren's tourist bus station departs at 8:30 and arrives at the Jiangkou base around 10:00. Cable cars run from 8:00 to 17:00; the last cable car down is at 17:30. Allow a full day and start early.