West Tianmu (Great Tree Kingdom)
西天目（大树王景区）
This is the Lin'an township built around 天目山国家级自然保护区: 4,284 to 4,300 ha, set up in 1956, national in 1986, a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1996, with 仙人顶 at 1,506 m. One walk on this site is drawn here, an 11.6 km recorded circuit that crosses a ticketed area with two gates and comes down a steeper branch. The pedestrian map offers this interior almost nothing, which is why the page depends on a GPS record.
天目山镇 sits in Lin'an, west of Hangzhou, and takes its name from 天目山: two summits facing each other across a ridge, the western one the administrative heart of a national reserve. 浙江天目山国家级自然保护区 was established in 1956, took national status in 1986 and joined the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere network in 1996. It covers 4,284 to 4,300 ha, divided into 617.4 ha of core zone, 263.5 ha of buffer and 3,403.1 ha of experimental area, and its high point is 仙人顶 at 1,506 m. The map brands the ticketed part 西天目山自然保护区 and 大树王景区 at once, and 东天目山 on the far side of the ridge is a separate paid park, 7 km east, not a half of this visit.
What is walkable here is one page on this site: the 大树王环线, 11.6 km and 929 m of climb, drawn from a GPS record rather than from a routing engine. That choice is forced. Every walking route the map engine can build inside the scenic area returns steps with no road name attached, and the only named pedestrian way anywhere in the interior is 天目山绿道, which passes 52 m from the high point. The recording crosses a ticketed area entered at the south 售票处 and left at the north one, 2,875 m away in a straight line, walking that gap as 6.5 km up and 5.1 km down.
The signposting is the story of this mountain. Its great trees are numbered rather than described, and the map carries them as named places: 四大王(柳杉) and 二大王(柳杉), with 三里, 五里 and 七里 pavilions counting distance from the gate. 禅源寺's halls stand on the lane, 开山老殿, 半月池, 九龙壁 and 幻住山房 sit on the shelf above, and 伏虎飞瀑 marks a fork. What the map will not settle is where the 大树王 itself stands: the point of interest with that name sits 158 m from the south gate, three kilometres from the area named after it, so no coordinate is published for the tree.
Two rules outrank any description here. The 管理局's notice of 2025-11-05 bans walking, climbing, crossing and photography in the core and buffer zones, and neither zone has a published outline, so this area's pages state the rule and make no claim about which side of it a path lies on. And Lin'an suspends all its scenic sites, campsites and high-risk or water projects on typhoon and heavy-rain orders, which happened three times in 2026: 10 July, 8 August, 28 August, with rural buses stopping as well.
Getting in is the expensive part of the day. Metro 16 to 临安广场站, then 874路 or 871路 west, a change at 交口, and 2819B路 the last mile: the transit engine's own answer is 2 hours 25 minutes and ¥10 with 758 m walked, and the return is longer at 2 hours 45. From 杭州东站 it is 3 hours 53 and ¥19, or ¥327 by taxi. Prices are the other open question: a 136 yuan rack rate, 110 to 120 online, 70 concession, and shuttle fares quoted as 20/40 by one source and 30/15 by another, with three incompatible opening readings and no last-entry time on record at all. The office that can settle it, 浙江天目山国家级自然保护区管理局, stands 140 m from the finish of the walk.
