You have to walk a long ways to get to the waterfall, so they have made the entrance interesting by creating a garden of tiny trees. We were calling them bonsai, but that is Japanese. In Chinese, they are pen jing. This was one of our favorites, but you can see in the picture behind it that there were many of all varieties, and they were all quite wonderful.

As you leave the garden, you follow a path down towards the Bai Shui River (the name means white water). First you can hear the waterfall, then you can see it in the distance, and each step brings you closer to it. This was our first glimpse of the waterfall, and everyone stopped to get their picture taken. We went on this excursion with a tour group, and are wearing our spiffy yellow "I'm in the tour group, please don't lose me" hats.

At 74 meters high (243 feet) and 81 meters wide (266 feet), Huangguoshu is the largest of a family of 23 waterfalls. These waterfalls are spread over an area of 20 square kilometers. The entire series of falls is certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest group of waterfalls in the world.

Huangguoshu empties into the Rhinoceros Pool, which is so named because it is supposed to be shaped like a Rhino. The waterfall thundering into the river at this point has created a pool that is 11 meters (36 feet) deep.

We saw several of these brightly colored caterpillars along the walkway as we got closer to the waterfall. I guess they like it where it is wet. We put this fellow back in the bushes so he wouldn't get stepped on, but another one we found on the steps refused to be rescued, so we left him to his own devices.

At this point we were right beside the waterfall. What a view! The plants at the edge of this picture were all wet from the spray.

This is a close up of the edge of the waterfall. This whole area of China is limestone - an ancient seabed before the uplift of the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau. The erosion of this limestone has created steep sided karst mountains, many caves, and the Huangguoshu waterfall family.

Huangguoshu has a "water curtain cave" that extends the entire width of the waterfall. It cuts through the rock behind the waterfall about a third of the way down from the top. As we walked through, water dripped onto our heads from the ceiling. Then every so often we came to places where the wall of the cave was worn through, and we could look right out at the waterfall as it plummeted to Rhinoceros Pool far below.

This picture is looking down the river, away from the waterfall. After going behind the waterfall, we crossed this suspension bridge to get back to the side of the river with the path on it. We then had the choice of retracing our steps, or riding the "giant ladder" (an escalator I think) out of the valley. That's it in the middle of the picture. We decided to climb, and though there were alot of steps, even Deanna made it just fine.

Lee took this picture from the suspension bridge. Deanna was hanging on with both hands. Around the bend of the river you can see the spray from the waterfall. They say you can hear it roar from five kilometers away. (three miles)

Copyright 2004, Dr. Lee Williams

Last Modified: 15 July 2004

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