The Apeng River, a tributary of the Wujiang River, starts in Lichuan, Hubei, and flows into the Wujiang River at Gongtan Town by Qianjiang and Youyang. Before it joins the Wujiang River, the Apeng roars through a gorge over thirty kilometers long, lined with precipitous peaks about a hundred meters high. The rapids flow past many shoals and emit thundering bellows. Vegetation is well preserved in the gorge, inhabited by a variety of wildlife species. Groups of monkeys can frequently be seen climbing up the sheer precipices or frolicking among the vines. Leopards sometimes appear on the ridges.

The Apeng is free of pollution. Standing at the convergence of the Wujiang and Yangtze rivers, you will find that the two rivers distinctly differ in color: the former clear, while the latter is muddy. However, the Apeng and Wujiang rivers also form a similar contrast between the original two. The comparison sheds some light on the limpidity of the Apeng River.

Guandu Gorge, ranging eighteen kilometers from Zhoubaidu to Guandu, is located twenty kilometers away from the Qianjiang county seat.

Guandu Gorge is narrow and sinuous. The river runs next to peaks reaching for the skies, dense trees, and pendulous vines. Azalea flowers are seen in full bloom in early summer; with green maple leaves flaming red in late autumn. Narrow spring waterfalls sprinkle under the sunshine, through "a sliver of sky," one of the scenic sights in the gorge. Swift-flowing waterfalls resemble colorful ribbons, with the slower ones like loose strings of pearls. Stalactites of all shapes hang down in rows. Coffins placed in cliff-side crevices are called "Cabinets of Immortals" by the local inhabitants.

The waterside village at the junction of the Guandu and Shenxi rivers was once a refuge for ancestors of the Miao people. Only two stone gates, an ancestral hall and a storehouse remain standing to this day. A stone column, dozens of meters high, stands erect on a rock. Legend has it that, for a long time the wife of a fisherman stood on the rock in anticipation of her husband's return home, eventually turning into a stone column. So the column is called Xiannti (Goddess) Peak. A cave in the cliff contains at least twenty naturally formed stone arhats.

Guandu Gorge is lined with a great many sights exhibiting a diversity of cultures and customs of different nationalities, such as Tujia wooden houses-on-stilts, Miao mountain villages, an exhibition hall of Ba culture and customs, as well as traditional folk villages, a dinosaur fossils museum, and an ancient ape-men museum.

The four gorges, Shengui, Tianmen, Renmen and Longmen, stretch a total length of thirty-eight kilometers, between the convergence of the Apeng and Xisha rivers and Baishilin, in Youyang County. The four gorges are generally referred to as Shengui Gorge.

In Shengui Gorge is found a cliff-side 1,700-meterlong plank road, a ten-kilometer breathtaking section at the Xisha River, and a five-kilometer gentle section along the Apeng River for the sport of rafting, along with hot-spring baths at the Xisha River, and an underground labyrinth in the Qianlong Cave. There are also opportunities for visitors to go hunting in the Luojia primeval forest, offer incense to Buddha at temples on the Tiantai Mountain, or go fishing at the artificial lake of Ma'anshan.