Lingfeng is the most dramatic of the Yandang park's scenic areas, centred on a cluster of towering rock formations rising two to three hundred metres from the valley floor. The peaks have been given evocative names — the Spreading Eagle, the Old Man Reading a Book, the Twin Buddhas — and the visual game of identifying faces and figures in the stone is part of the experience that has attracted scholars, painters, and poets here since the Tang dynasty.
A cave temple, the Guanyin Cave, is built into a hollow in the largest rock face, its nine stories accessible by ladders inside the cliff. The view from the upper floors across the valley to the other rock formations is unlike anything else in eastern China. The scenic area also has several smaller shrines and a pagoda set against the cliff faces, and the paths between the formations pass through bamboo groves and small streams. Allow three hours to walk the full circuit.