Taibai Mountain Scenic Area is not worth visiting in winter

Taibai Mountain Scenic Area is free of charge in winter, but it is not recommended for the following reasons: 1⃣️ Although the entrance fee is free, the total cost is still high. The hiking route is not open, and you need to take a shuttle bus + cable car for the whole journey. The shuttle bus costs 90 + cable car costs 160, totaling 250 yuan; 2⃣️ The scenic area is only open to the Tianyuan Difang Observation Deck, with few places worth visiting. The shuttle bus will stop at several points, but they are all man-made ice scenes (see p12-p18 for details). The best scenery is on the cable car (p8-p11) and the Tianyuan Difang Observation Deck (p1-p7); 3⃣️ It takes 2.5 hours by bus from Xi'an, which is too long. Combined with the above two points, it means that you spend the whole day on the bus and then see less than 1 hour of scenery.