Bailong Elevator

The Bailong Elevator — literally 'Hundred Dragons Elevator' — is a 326-metre outdoor lift built directly against a sheer sandstone cliff face in the Wulingyuan Scenic Area near Zhangjiajie, China. Completed in 2002 and Guinness World Record-certified since 2015 as the world's tallest outdoor elevator, it carries up to 50 passengers from the valley floor to a high plateau in under two minutes. The surrounding Wulingyuan park, whose towering quartzite sandstone pillars are widely credited as visual inspiration for the floating Hallelujah Mountains in the film Avatar, wraps the structure in a near-permanent shroud of mist and vertiginous scenery. The glass-sided cabin hugs the rock face close enough to feel geological — and opens at the top onto a plateau network of hiking trails with sweeping views across the pillar-studded canyon.