LangBiang hiking is always a favorite activity of those who like outdoor activities during their trip to Da Lat city, just more than 5 hours by bus from Ho Chi Minh city. The lowest peak of LangBiang mountain is 1950 meters above sea level and the shortest hiking trail to Radar peak is only 5.5 kilometers from the foot of the mountain. Therefore, hiking trail is suitable for beginners and experienced hikers.
Located 12 km away from North Da Lat city center, mount LangBiang belongs to LangBiang Tourism Area, in Lac Duong suburban district. Mount LangBiang called “Nui Me” or Mother mountain, comprises 2 peaks, having an altitude of 2,167 meters. Legend has it that there was a talented man and beautiful girl falling in love deeply – His name is K’lang and she is Hơ Biang. Due to a revengeful vow between two clans, they have had to separate. After dead, Hơ Biang became a mountain that called Nui Me by Hơ Ho-lạch ethnic. Then, two peaks were named LangBiang mountain. There are many Tay Nguyen ethnical minority people living at the foot-hill such as Lát, Chil (Cơ Ho), Lạch ethnics.
Table of Contents
LangBiang trail
LangBiang mountain map
LangBiang mountain comprises 2 peaks: Radar peak (1950 meters) and Langbiang peak (2167 meters). Depending on your fitness and your available time, you can hike both or one of them.
Trail to Radar Peak
- The highest point where jeep cars can reach
- Altitude: 1950m
- Total trail length: 5.5km
- Estimated walking time: 2h00
Trail to LangBiang Peak
- Unique way to reach LangBiang summit is hiking
- Height: 2167m
- Total trail length: 10.6km
- Estimated walking time: 4h00
This is an estimated time of hike without much rest and taking lots of photos on the way. In fact, it took nearly 3 hours and a half for us to reach Radar peak because we spent much time in taking photos and taking a rest. For hiking down, it was much faster than hiking up to Radar peak. It only took 1 hour and a half to the base of LangBiang mountain. 😊
For Radar peak visit, we started at about 9am from the hotel and returned back the hotel at around 5pm.
To explore LangBiang summit, you should depart from the hotel soon due to a longer hiking trail. For a short hiking trail to Radar peak, you can take your time and can depart later.
Preparation before LangBiang hiking trip
Before LangBiang one-day hiking, some essential things should be well-prepared to have a safe, good trip as follows:
- Bring some bottles of water (depending on your demand), 1.5 liters – 2liters of water is fine.
- Fruits such as oranges, mandarin oranges help you to supplement more vitamin C, water, natural sugar.
- Packed-food for lunch at the summit such as Banh mi, dumpling (bánh bao) or easy-to-pack food (depending on your taste).
- You should wear proper hiking shoes such as sandals, hiking or trekking shoes which have a hard sole with crampons that facilitates the removal of mud, adapted to natural footpaths.
- You should not wear running shoes since its design does not suit hiking trails and slippery footpaths. Some of us slipped while trying to climb up a quite sloping hill in LangBiang mountain because of running shoes. Finally, we decided to take off our shoes and walked through this slippery footpath with socks only. Many small pine leaves falling on the ground covered trails in the forest and created a slippery layer. It made us hard walk faster on running shoes which have flat soles.
- Bring a wide-brimmed hat, suntan scream, sunglasses
- Wear a light sun protective jacket
- Make use of nearby wooden sticks or dry tree branches for support while hiking up and down hill or bring trekking or hiking poles which reduce the load on both knee and joints. You can buy a good trekking pole on Decathlon website; a famous sport company specializes in manufacturing professional sport gears with an affordable price for beginners and professional hikers. A trekking pole costs from 125,000 VND up.
- Bring a cellphone to keep in touch.
- Bring a camera or a smartphone camera to capture nice moments if taking photos is your favorite. Sometimes your cellphone can lose signal in the forest. So, you should travel in a walking group in case of injuries.
Notices
- You should not hike in the rainy season because hiking trails are very slippery when wet, dangerous and an accident easily occurs.
- You should not hike down Mount LangBiang on hiking trail after 3pm as it is dangerous. You should walk down on the asphalted road after that time.
- You should join a trekking group in case of injuries and should not leave the group to hike alone.
Our LangBiang hiking trip
Langbiang symbol at the base of Langbiang mountain
From Dalat city center, we rent two motorbikes to LangBiang Tourism Area. We used Google Maps to locate the way to 305 Lang Biang street, Lac Duong suburban district, Lam Dong province which is the address of LangBiang Tourism area. It is easy to drive on the road. However, some roads have been being under construction. So, there are lots of dust of red soil. It took about 30 minutes to arrive there.
From the entrance of LangBiang Tourism Area, there are 2 ways to hike LangBiang mountain:
Route 1
You should buy an entrance ticket costing 50.000đ/ an adult, then walking through Receptionist Area and following the asphalted road where jeep cars run up the peak, then crossing One Hundred Valey (called Thung Lũng Trăm Năm in Vietnamese), then walking about hundreds of meters, you can see a signpost on the right side path showing the way to a hiking trail. You just follow directions of blazes and trail signposts hung on the trees to hike to the summit of LangBiang.
Route 2
You do not need to buy entrance tickets. If you stand in front of the main entrance, you can see a soil road in front of you, to your right side, next to Entrance tickets, just follow that road. If you are not sure, just ask the motorbike keepers.
We decided to follow the route 2. First, we saw a quite rough around -3- meter- wide road with red soil. After about hundred meters walk, there are a rose greenhouse to your left side and a strawberry garden to your right side. Passing a short stretch of the road, the road is larger and when looking on the left hand, we can see a red soil wide slope towards the mountain. That is the LangBiang hiking trail.
A rose greenhouse on the way to Langbiang hiking trail
Standing from the red soil wide slope leading to access to LangBiang hiking trail, looking back to the base of hill.
There are not tall trees on both sideroads. It is hard to find the shade of the trees to hide under the hot weather. Continuing to walk around 300 meters, we walk along coffee fields protected by wire fences. Many coffee trees are blooming many bunches of white flowers which look beautifully under the sun. A small red soil pathway enough for 1 person walking leading to an access of the mountain. We saw many big pines and a forest in front of us. We felt happy as we went the right way.
A red soil wide slope towards access to Langbiang hiking trail
Coffee fields protected by wire fences.
Many bunches of white coffee flowers are blooming
A dry tree in LangBiang Tourism Area
Weed on the red soil slope
At T-junctions, there are trail signs hanging on the pine. UP and DOWN sign indicates Go Up and Go down. When you saw these signposts, that also means you hike on the right way.
A trail signpost hung on a big pine in the forest
Signposts on LangBiang trails
Langbiang hiking trails have white signposts painted on the trees or stones or separate big signposts hung on the big trees such as:
- Turn right, go straight ahead, turn left
- Some blue signposts with white letters on the trees such as: “Go up, go down”
We just follow the guides of signposts and keep moving.
It was hot during the time we were travelling to Da Lat. So it was really cool to be sometimes in many very tall green pines with fresh air under the hot weather. A sough of the wind crossing through the pines made us think that is the sound of rain. It’s quite long time that I haven’t heard such a beautiful sound of the wind like a melody. It lasted around 2 minutes. Despite sweating much, we felt really well. Sometimes, I saw many wild fruits on many short small trees without leaves on both roadsides on the way. They are white and egg yellow. They look like eggplants.
The deep we went into the mountain; the weaker the phone’s signal was. That’s why it is really important to have at least one travelling companion you can go with. Your friend can help you in case of injuries. Furthermore, you can have many amazing photos taking by your friend that you maybe don’t take such beautiful photos by yourself.
Hiking in the Langbiang mountain
Hiking under tall pines of LangBiang mountain
During hiking a quite slopping, slippery mountain side of LangBiang, one of our members slipped a short distance due to a very thick pine leaves covering on the ground and there were no things to grasp. He tried to lie face down to stop being slipped. However, he could not move or stand up because there are no fulcrums to stand up. Luckily, he was not travelling alone and had 2 companions. At this time, we can not make a phone call due to no signals in the forest. We took off his heavy back pack first, then kept his foot not moving as a strong fulcrum so that he could slowly stand on his upper-arms, then on his knees, then totally could stand up on both his feet. This accident took us nearly 10 minutes.
Due to many hikers visiting LangBiang mountain, in order to protect a green, clean forest, many signposts were put in on the way such as:
- Keep our forest clean, do not throw garbage on the ground
- Do not litter
- Do not fire in the forest
So, after eating or drinking, we should take plastic bags, plastic bottles or garbage out of the forest.
After about 3.5km hiking trail, we entered the asphalted road mostly used for jeep cars driving tourists to the top of Langbiang mountain. So, we decided to walk on this road instead of a hiking trail for hikers because it was nearly at noon. Nevertheless, there were somethings interesting on the new route. The first time we saw many lovely small leaves of 3-leave pines on roadsides. Sometimes we can pick some beautiful pine fruit off the ground for souvenirs. Besides, we can capture amazing photos with a beautiful curved road.
Continuing to walk, we saw a T-junction. There are many trail signs on some trees on the right roadside and a relax stop, in which, a red trail sign indicates one white blaze to the right showing a turn direction to Langbiang peak (3 kilometers), another one to the left showing a direction to Radar peak (2 kilometers).
Trail signs on some trees at a T-junction to indicate the way to LangBiang peak and Radar peak
Our group decided to go to Radar peak as another group arrived that peak and waiting for us. On this road, there is a very beautiful curve incline to take photos.
A beautiful curved road on the way to Radar peak
Finally, we reached Radar peak at around 1pm. How amazing was when we overcome ourself to conquer Radar peak under the hot weather. Then, we had lunch there by packed food and took a rest and enjoyed splendid scenic spots.
A nice view of Da Lat city from Radar peak
Binocular station to help tourists to enjoy the landscapes of Da Lat clearer
A tourist spot at Radar peak
Radar peak is the highest point that UAZ cars or jeep cars can drive travelers from the foot-hill of Langbiang mountain to the top. Therefore, it received more investments to create many beautiful photography spots to attract more tourists such as: creating lovely gardens with beautiful, colorful flowers, building some modern cottages for taking a rest in the hot weather, coffee shops with a best view… That’s why this peak attracts many tourists, especially young people. Here there are also nice restaurants, coffee shops, clean toilets. In case you are tired or lazy to walk downhill, you can buy a jeep car ticket to go down.
A symbol of cock at Radar peak
Some restaurants and relax modern cottages at Radar peak
We took a rest and enjoy fresh air and a nice view of Da Lat city from the top until 2:30pm, then we decided to take the asphalted road to hike down Langbiang mountain instead of the hiking trail to save time. Furthermore, there is many trail signs prohibiting not hiking down or up after 3pm because it’s dangerous. At the moment, it started a little bit cold when some strong wind appears.
Walking down the mountain is quicker than the hiking up, except some long steep, curved road making us reduce our walking speed. Especially when hearing the sound of these cars from behind, it is better for us to walk very close a roadside and stop walking when these cars pass us since the road are narrow and these cars runs very fast.
After 1.5 hour hiking down, we arrived at the foot of mountain. The clock shows exactly 4pm. How a great feeling was ! We followed the Main Entrance of LangBiang to exit. We just saw only our 2 motorbikes standing alone in the motorbike parking. The motorbike parking charge is cheap too, 10.000d/ per day/a motorbike.
At the end of Langbiang hiking trip, I got some beautiful pines.
Have a nice and interesting incoming LangBiang hiking!
If you have any queries, don’t hesitate to left your comments under this article. I’m glad to read it. Thank for taking time to read this quite long article. 🙂
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