Avatar Hallelujah Mountain

The pillar officially renamed "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain" in 2010 — formerly called Southern Sky Column — stands 1,080 metres above the Wulingyuan valley floor in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, rising as a near-vertical shaft of ancient quartzite sandstone draped in subtropical vegetation. In 2008 director James Cameron visited Wulingyuan and was so struck by the otherworldly pillar landscape that he used it as the primary inspiration for the floating Hallelujah Mountains of Pandora in his 2009 film Avatar. The park authorities renamed the column in acknowledgement. Like all Wulingyuan's 3,000-plus pillars, it was formed over 380 million years by the deposition, uplift, and differential erosion of quartz sandstone, with fractures widened by roots and water over millions of years until only freestanding columns remained. At various times of day the pillar disappears into cloud and mist, recreating the film's floating mountain effect. The best viewing platform is from the Tianzi Mountain cable car or the ridgeline walk along Yuanjiajie.