Tents on the Grass at Yangtianhu, Chenzhou’s High Meadow

There is a grassland in the hills south of 郴州 Chēnzhōu that nobody expects, least of all the people who arrive after driving an hour and a half up a series of switchbacks through bamboo and fir. Then the trees open and there is a broad, gently folded meadow on top of the ridge, with horses grazing on it, and a scatter of white canvas tents pitched along the crest. The wind comes across the grass at a steady fifteen kilometres an hour and the temperature is five or six degrees below the city. 仰天湖 Yǎngtiānhú — literally “lake facing the sky” — is a pocket of upland meadow in the 南岭 Nánlǐng foothills, and the camps built on it are the closest thing in southern Hunan to a night in the open without the discomfort that phrase usually implies.

The grass here is genuinely grassland rather than a cleared hillside: the altitude and the exposure have kept trees off this section of ridge for a long time, and the local 瑶族 Yáozú communities have grazed cattle and horses on it for centuries. The named lake itself is a small, shallow pond on the western side, more interesting for the light it throws across the meadow than for its own sake. What makes the place worth the drive is the combination of elevation and openness: on a clear evening you can see the sun go down behind three separate ridges, and on a clear night the absence of any town within twenty kilometres means the sky is far darker than anywhere in the province’s south.

The camps are a mix. The polished ones use large canvas bell tents on wooden platforms, with real beds, linen, electricity, a shared shower block with hot water and a fire pit; the basic ones use smaller ridge tents on the grass with sleeping mats and a torch. Some have a dining marquee and serve a set dinner of local dishes — cured pork, bamboo shoots, chicken stewed with chestnuts. Book the platform tents if the weather is unsettled, because the ridge catches fronts that the valley below never sees.

Practicalities

Price. Platform bell tents with linen and meals run ¥400 to ¥800 per tent per night depending on the season, usually including breakfast and sometimes dinner. Simple ridge tents on the grass are ¥150 to ¥300. Weekend rates are higher and the place fills up in July and August, when the city below is unbearable and the ridge is not.

Address. 湖南省郴州市北湖区仰天湖 Húnán Shěng Chēnzhōu Shì Běihú Qū Yǎngtiānhú, up the mountain road from 鲁塘镇 Lǔtáng Zhèn. Camps are spread along several kilometres of ridge; each has its own access track.

Rooms. Tents, not rooms, though the top tier is closer to a canvas hotel: timber floor, bed, proper bedding, lamp, power socket. Expect shared bathrooms unless you book a suite tent, and expect the temperature to fall to ten degrees or lower at night even in summer. Bring a fleece.

Getting there. From 郴州西站 Chēnzhōu Xī zhàn, about 90 minutes by car, the last 40 minutes on a winding single-track road that is not fun in fog. There is no public transport to the ridge itself; some camps run a shuttle from the town on weekends.

flowcloud would say that the case for a night up here has nothing to do with camping and everything to do with the sky, which is the one thing a city of four million people cannot give you.

Where to stay: pick a camp on the eastern side of the ridge if you want the sunrise through the tent door, and confirm before booking that your tent has a platform and heating, because on this ridge a cold front in April feels like February.