Shilin (Stone Forest)

Stone Forest is an area of Karst rock formations in the shape of sharply carved pillars 10 to 100 feet high. It's about 50 miles from Kunming along a fast new road. It has been turned into a National Park, with carefully sculpted pathways and hand holds, and lawns and bright gardens in the more open places. It seems to be very popular with the Chinese, and many of the narrow trails were jammed with tour groups.


Crowds at the Great Stone Forest
The Dragon's Tooth gives you good luck if you can jump and touch it. It wasn't much of a challenge of my 6 ft 5in! (That's not me in the picture.)


Dragon's Tooth


Viewing Pavilion
We didn't even attempt to climb to the Viewing Pavilion because of the grid lock on the trail up to it! But our host found us a nice narrow side path with no people that climbed up almost as high - although I think he wished he hadn't, since the trail was very narrow, steep, and climbed over the high rocks (but with very good hand holds carved out of the rock)!






Views of the Stone Forest
Many of the rock formations had names. The elephant was most convincing.


"Elephant on Platform"


Lawns and Gardens