@brittandmitchworldwide opens a 22 second reel at the lobby of the Bailong Elevator in Zhangjiajie, China. A woman in a red halter top and denim shorts steps into a glass fronted lift with a bag on her shoulder, and on screen text reads: “you plan an entire trip to China just to ride the MOST scenic elevator in the world…” As the doors close, a second line appears, “Wait for it…,” and for about six seconds the camera stays on her back while she looks up at a green tinted wall.
Then the wall falls away. At about the ten second mark the elevator clears the cliff and a sunlit wall of tall sandstone pillars, covered in green, fills the glass. She turns, grips the rail and laughs. The next shots show the cliff face rising beside her, a glass walled platform at the top where she stands looking out over the valley, and a final wide view of golden lit rock towers over a hazy ridge line. A last line of text says the full details are in the caption.
The caption is where the practical story is. The couple write that they “somehow got one of the busiest attractions in Zhangjiajie all to ourselves.” They say the elevator is “usually packed with people waiting to ride this glass elevator 326 metres straight up the side of a cliff,” but that they went right at the end of the day and “there was barely anyone around.” That let them enjoy the ride “without being squashed in with hundreds of other people.” Their one tip is to go towards the end of the day, though they say they cannot guarantee it will be empty and that it was much quieter than what they had seen earlier.
The caption also gives a timing: the elevator takes “just around 1½ minutes to reach the top,” which they call one of the quickest ways into the Zhangjiajie mountains. It names the location as Bailong Elevator, Zhangjiajie, China, and the post’s location tag reads Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. The reel’s hook, that a trip was planned around the ride, is on screen text. The caption itself says only that they went at the end of the day.
The region has a UNESCO listing too. UNESCO inscribed the Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area in 1992, a property of about 26,400 hectares in China’s Hunan Province. It says the area has more than 3,000 quartz sandstone pillars and peaks, many of them rising over 200 meters, along with ravines, gorges, streams, pools and waterfalls. One of the natural bridges in the area rises 357 meters above the valley floor. The reel does not name Wulingyuan, so the area figures are background and not something the video states.
For a reader planning the same ride, the usable points are small and specific. Ride late in the day, as the caption advises, and do not count on an empty car, since the creators themselves say they cannot promise one. Expect the ascent to take about a minute and a half, as the caption says. Face the glass for the reveal, because the video shows the view appearing only when the elevator clears the cliff, about ten seconds in. The caption and the reel do not give ticket prices, opening hours or the name of the entrance, so those need to come from the park.
