Yanziyan Waterfall Forest
An 87-metre waterfall cascades down a crimson danxia cliff, ringed by thirty thousand tree ferns in Chishui canyon country.
What it actually is
Yanziyan is a standalone scenic area within the larger Chishui Danxia Tourism Area, set on the Fengxi River about twenty kilometres south of Chishui city in northern Guizhou. Its eighty-seven-metre waterfall drops in narrow swallow-tail strands off a sheer danxia cliff, surrounded by more than thirty thousand ancient tree ferns. Visitors walk the 1,818 stone steps in, then ride the cable car back out.
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Swallow-tail waterfall over a danxia cliff
The eighty-seven-metre Yanziyan Falls drops in narrow ribbons off the lip of a red danxia wall, the water splitting and rejoining mid-air so it flickers like the split tail of a swallow in low light. The lower viewing platform brings you close enough to feel the mist; the back-corridor cave lets you walk behind the sheet itself.
An amphitheatre of thirty thousand tree ferns
Hiking the southern staircase enters a grove of more than thirty thousand mature suoluo (Cycas-like tree ferns, Jurassic survivors that lined with the dinosaurs), filtering the midday sun into a green half-light that most travelers describe as film-set quiet.
Cable car descent over the danxia ridges
After the climb, the 1.5 km Yanziyan cable car lifts you back out over the tree-fern canopy and a sweep of red-rock ridges; on clear mornings the cabin windows frame the falls, the forest and the distant Chishui skyline all at once.
An amphitheatre of thirty thousand tree ferns
Hiking the southern staircase enters a grove of more than thirty thousand mature suoluo — Jurassic-era tree ferns that lived alongside the dinosaurs — their fronds filtering the midday sun into a green half-light most travellers describe as film-set quiet.