On the border with North Korea, Changbai Shan is China’s largest nature reserve and by far the top attraction in the surrounding region.
The park itself is beautifully rugged with bitch trees and pine trees eventually making way to a far more sparse other-worldly landscape once you get above 2000m / 6500ft. But it is the walk up the north slope to the Heaven Lake sitting 2,200m / 7200ft on the top of Paektu Mountain that is the highlight.
The mountain, little know outside of this part of the world, is an important mythological and cultural symbol for parts of China and certainly for Korea. For example, it is in both North and South Korea’s national anthems and is on the national emblem of the North.
We visited here at the slightly unusual time of mid October which, because the place is waiting to make its transition from summer visitors to opening up for those visiting the ski slopes later in the year, certainly made it a bit harder to reach and in particular harder to find a place open. The flip side was that it felt we had the walk up to the Heaven Lake almost all to ourselves, which made for a quite unique experience.
Top tip – try to stay at the Lanjing Spa Holiday Inn which is only 500m from the north gate entrance. It has a feeling of being secluded to very much adds to the otherworldly feel. Most likely at this time of year you’ll be able to get a discount. No worries if can’t get a spot there, you can stay in Baihe and just get a taxi for 40mins or so to the entrance gate.