The cabins are timber, raised on short piles above the slope, and the main thing they offer is silence — the kind that has a texture, where after ten minutes you start hearing the stream a hundred metres below and the wind in the 水杉 shuǐshān, the dawn redwoods, that grow in stands up here. There is a hot spring trickle piped into a stone tank behind the main building, which is not a spa and does not pretend to be: it is a bath-sized pool of water at about 38 degrees with a view of trees. Mobile signal exists in one corner of the car park. A cabin for two is ¥280–560 a night, and the price is essentially a function of whether it is a weekend and whether you have a private bathroom.
舜皇山 Shùnhuáng Shān — the Emperor Shun Mountain — is a forest park in 东安县 Dōng’ān Xiàn, on the southwestern edge of Yongzhou where the province meets Guangxi. It is named for the same legendary emperor whose tomb is at Jiuyi, in a different county. The mountain rises to just under 1,900 metres, is covered in broadleaf forest with a serious population of old trees, and is genuinely wet — waterfalls and streams everywhere, ferns on everything, and a humidity that makes the air feel like a different substance from the air in the city. It has been developed modestly as a summer retreat for people from Yongzhou and Guilin, and the accommodation is a mix of a state guesthouse, a handful of private lodges and the cabins.
The one thing to plan around is that the park is a real forest with real animals: the local reserve has snakes, monkeys and, in the higher and remoter parts, animals that the signage describes in terms carefully chosen to be reassuring. Walking off the marked paths alone in summer is not a good idea, and the staff will tell you so.
What You Are Paying For
Price. ¥280–560 per cabin or lodge room, more at weekends and in July and August, when the whole of southern Hunan wants to be at altitude. Village guesthouses at the park gate are ¥120–200.
Address. 舜皇山国家森林公园 Shùnhuáng Shān Guójiā Sēnlín Gōngyuán, 东安县 Dōng’ān Xiàn, 永州市 Yǒngzhōushì.
Rooms. The cabins sleep two, occasionally three with a platform; the lodges have proper rooms with en-suite bathrooms. Ask for 带热水 dài rèshuǐ — with hot water — and check whether the water is the spring or a solar heater.
Getting there. About 60 kilometres and 90 minutes by car from 永州 Yǒngzhōu; the park gate is roughly 40 minutes from 东安 Dōng’ān county town, and taxis will not want to go. Most guests arrive by car or as part of a driver-hire day.
What the Locals Know
The park is closed to vehicles after a certain hour and the road up is single-track. Arrive before dark; driving the last section at night on a wet mountain road is not worth doing for the sake of an extra afternoon in town.
Bring food, or eat at the lodge and pay for it. There is essentially nothing in the park and the nearest shop is at the gate. The lodges cook decent farm food — local chicken, mountain vegetables, cured pork — for ¥40–80 a head.
Do the waterfall loop early. It is a two-to-three hour walk on stone steps, steep in places and slippery when wet, and it is much better before the day-trippers arrive at ten.
Take the leeches seriously in summer. Long trousers and closed shoes; this is genuine subtropical forest.
Where to Stay
The cabins are the experience and the lodges are the comfort; the state guesthouse is the fallback. In July and August everything within the park sells out to families from 桂林 Guìlín and 永州 Yǒngzhōu, so book early or come in May and October, which are better months anyway.
flowcloud would say that a mountain named after an emperor who is supposed to have died four thousand years ago, and which now exists mainly as somewhere for office workers from two provinces to sweat out a summer, has made a reasonable peace with its own mythology — and that the hot water is probably nicer than anything the emperor had.
Where to stay: 舜皇山国家森林公园 (Shùnhuáng Shān Guójiā Sēnlín Gōngyuán), 东安县 (Dōng’ān Xiàn), 永州市 (Yǒngzhōushì), 湖南 (Húnán). Forest cabins ¥280–560, gate guesthouses ¥120–200. 90 minutes by car from 永州 (Yǒngzhōu). Arrive before dark, book for July and August well ahead, and bring long trousers.