The cabins sit on a slope, spaced out among the trees, connected by a path of timber steps that ends at a trailhead. 临湘市 Línxiāng Shì is a county-level city at the northern edge of Yueyang, pressed against the Hubei border, and 五尖山 Wǔjiān Shān, Five Peaks Mountain, is the wooded ridge that rises behind it, protected as a national forest park and covered in the kind of dense mixed woodland that survives when a place is too steep to farm. A lodge here is a base for walking, for a night away from the city, and for the specific pleasure of being in a forest in the dark with no streetlights anywhere in sight.
The accommodation is simple and the setting is not. Cabins are single rooms or small two-room units built in the same style as the older forestry houses, with timber walls, a window wall to the slope, and a bathroom that is modern enough to have hot water on demand. Some are elevated on stilts against the gradient, which means a balcony over the undergrowth and the sound of the slope after rain. Note that sound carries: the park is a hill, the cabins are scattered along it, and a loud evening in one of them is audible in three others, so the place is quiet by convention.
The Forest, and What It Is For
Wujianshan is a domestic forest park with a loop of trails rather than a wilderness, and that is the honest description. Paths are cut and signposted, there are pavilions at the viewpoints and a temple partway up, and the summit ridge gives a view over the flat country toward Dongting. What makes it worth the trip is the density of the trees, the fact that between May and September the canopy closes over the path entirely, and the birdlife that comes with a protected block of woodland in otherwise flat and heavily farmed country. Autumn is the busiest season, when the broadleaved trees turn; winter is empty and can be genuinely cold.
Practicalities
Price. A standard cabin room runs about ¥250 to ¥600 a night depending on size, elevation and season, with the top of the band reserved for the autumn colour weeks in late October and early November and for the October public holiday. Breakfast is usually included and is basic; dinner should be ordered in advance, because the nearest restaurants are down in the town.
Address. The lodge is inside 五尖山国家森林公园 Wǔjiānshān Guójiā Sēnlín Gōngyuán, a short drive from the centre of 临湘市 Línxiāng Shì and roughly an hour by road from 岳阳市 Yuèyáng Shì. The 107 national road and the 京港澳 Jīng-Gǎng-Ào expressway both pass close by.
Rooms. Ask for an elevated cabin with a balcony, and ask how many steps from the car park, because the answer varies a great deal and the worst rooms involve carrying luggage up a long flight. Rooms with the window wall facing the slope are worth the premium; the ones facing the access path see headlights. Bring a torch, and expect mobile signal to come and go depending on which side of the ridge you are on.
Getting there. By car, from Yueyang it is about an hour via the expressway, and from 长沙 Chángshā around two and a half hours. 临湘站 Línxiāng Zhàn on the ordinary rail line is in the town, and the high-speed 岳阳东站 Yuèyáng Dōng Zhàn is about an hour away; from either, a taxi is the only realistic way up to the park. There is no shuttle into the forest park itself.
flowcloud would say that a night on Wujianshan is mostly an argument about darkness, since the forest is ordinary in daylight and becomes another place entirely once the last car has gone back down the road.
Where to stay: in an elevated cabin with a balcony facing the trees, on a weeknight outside the autumn colour season if you want the quiet the place is designed for. Ask how far the cabin is from the car park and whether dinner can be arranged on site, and take a torch, because the path between the cabins is lit only enough to find the next step.