The Three Natural Bridges, along with the Longshuixia Ground Fissure and Fairy Mountain Forest Park we visited yesterday, are all part of the Fairy Mountain National Tourist Resort. Depending on your time and interests, you can purchase individual tickets for one or two of these, or a combined ticket for all (the price is the same). The visitor center offers multiple shuttle bus routes to various locations.
Time can take away everything, but it deliberately left the Three Natural Bridges for us.
The Three Natural Bridges (5A), a World Natural Heritage Site and National Geopark, features typical karst landforms. This remarkable creation of nature is a rare and unforgettable geological wonder (Figure 1).
Upon entering the scenic area, you'll first walk along a gently sloping cliffside viewing corridor several hundred meters long (Figure 2). After passing through a cave, take the 115-meter-high rotating sightseeing elevator (Figure 3) down to the midpoint. Then, descend hundreds of stone steps to the valley floor and follow the "Tang Dynasty Post Road" to the first natural bridge, the Tianlong Bridge.
Tianlong Bridge, named for its position as the first of the three bridges, features two through-holes, giving it a towering structure resembling a soaring dragon (Figure 4). The bridge is 235 meters high, 150 meters thick, and its arches are 96 meters high, with an average span of 34 meters. It exudes grandeur and grandeur, creating a majestic presence.
At the bottom of the Tianlong Bridge pit lies the Tianfuguan Posthouse (Figure 5), an ancient courtyard house built in the second year of the Wude reign of the Tang Dynasty. It served as an important posthouse for official communication in ancient times and is famous for being the filming location for the film "Curse of the Golden Flower."
The second overpass, Qinglong Bridge (Figure 6), stands at 281 meters high, the tallest of the three natural bridges and the highest karst natural bridge in the world. Its arches are 103 meters high, with an average span of 31 meters. Pausing to admire them, the through-holes resemble a "Green Dragon Crescent Blade." Looking back after crossing Qinglong Bridge, the through-holes resemble a "carp leaping over the dragon gate" (Figure 7). From a distance, the cliffs resemble "a divine eagle spreading its wings" (Figure 8).
The third sky bridge, the "Black Dragon Bridge," is named for its deep, dark, curved archway, resembling a black dragon winding across the ceiling. Its arch is 116 meters high, the highest of the three bridges; its deck is 193 meters wide, the widest of the three. Looking up from the bottom of the bridge, the arch appears lofty and vast, a towering cliff. A closer look at the arch reveals the silent, falling Pearl Spring (Figure 9).
The entire tour is a one-way route, with no backtracking, and the entire hike is approximately 3 kilometers. After exiting the scenic area, take a shuttle back to the visitor center, where the tour concludes, taking approximately 3 hours.