The Grand and the Thundering falls are two of the most breathtaking rapids in China. Even ancient explorer Xu Xiake, imperial China's Indiana Jones, was captivated, Erik Nilsson reports.

As a country laced with rivers and with a topography crumpled into mountains by three tectonic plates collisions, China is awash with waterfalls.

That said, Huangguoshu (Yellow Fruit Tree) National Waterfall Park outside Guizhou's provincial capital Guiyang attracts the greatest deluge of travelers, as perhaps the largest chain of cascades in the country and on the continent.

And while Huangguoshu's 18 cataracts stand out in China, two rise above the rest - the Grand and the Thundering falls.

Rocks at the top of the Grand Waterfall's crest slice the river into a 101-meter-wide span of water ribbons that flutter 78 meters into the Rhinoceros Pond.

This torrent discharges an aerosol that beads up on visitors, even on the river's other side, and often creates a rainbow or two, especially from 9 to 11 am.

You'll leave wet.

About 700 cubic meters of water whoosh over the precipice per second.

Ancient explorer Xu Xiake - imperial China's Indiana Jones - compared the cataract's dynamics to "smoke flying in a marvelous way" in 1638.

Visitors can hike behind the cascade through the 134-meter Water Curtain Cave.

The tunnel's walls are pocked with six "windows" through which the gushing water can be seen behind a frame of ferns and vines.

Visitors leave the Grand Waterfall via the Grand Escalator, which pulls them up the mountainside to the Miniscape Garden.

The garden's hundreds of bonsais, rock formations and pools create an idyllic quaintness that contrasts with the ferocity of the Grand Waterfall's deluge.

About a kilometer upstream from the Grand Waterfall is the Thundering Waterfall.

It's Huangguoshu's loudest and widest at 105 meters wide. Yet it's only 21 meters high.

It drains a 1,500-square-meter karst pond upstream.

Xu Xiake recalled locating the cataract by sound rather than sight: "I heard the rumbling water from afar and saw a gap between the hills to the north. The water was rushing from the mountaintop in the northeast, vehemently whooshing into an abyss."

While waterfalls remain Huangguoshu's main attraction, the Grand and Thundering cascades steal the show.

Rather than view the other 16 falls, most visitors trek to the Tianxing Stone Scenic Area.

Here, rather than plummeting from above, the water stands motionless below the rocks to reflect an aquatic doppelganger of the flora-fleeced stones that jut skyward.

The area is traversed by hopping 365 steppingstones.

These dollops of rock plopped into the wetlands are each stamped with a plate indicating a date in the year. Visitors hunt for the stones that correspond with their birthdays to make wishes.

The surrounding karst formations bristle with coiled ferns, knobby cactuses, cascading vines, fleecy moss and bamboo plumes. Roots clutch rocks like raptors clasping their prey.

Sites here have such names as "Stone of Evolutionary Spirit", "Evergreen Gorge" and "Root for Human Race", in which the roots of a tree vaguely trace the Chinese character for "person" (ren).

Gaolaozhuang is where the mythical General Pig from the epic story Journey to the West is said to have carried off the woman he made his wife.

Miao vendors clad in traditional attire hawk sugarcane slices, yams and cucumbers from woven baskets that dangle from shoulder poles. Younger men in modern garb sell geodes, crystals and fossils.

Their presences reaffirm that Huangguoshu is a place where unique cultures populate some of the most distinctive topographical formations the country sires.

Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 03/14/2013 page19)