Not climbing Mount Emei (Emei Shan, Sichuan Province, China)

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(Day 124 on the road)To say it right up front: The plan to climb Emei Shan failed completely. From Lugu Lake, we took a bus across the border from Yunnan into Sichuan. The journey was a bit of a mixed blessing: It went through some amazing and remote scenery, but I was sick for about half of the eight hour journey due to the endless bends and the bad condition of the road. Unfortunately, I was also not able to take any pictures for this part of the trip as the road was much too bumpy, but try to imagine a road running right on the edge of a deep gorge, a big muddy river far below, and all this surrounded by lush green peaks. Amazing!

After spending the night and the next morning in the city of Xichang, we caught a seven hour train to Emei town in the afternoon, arriving there in the middle of a fierce storm around 2100h. After spending the night there we finally made it to the base of Mount Emei the next day, which was about one more hour by minibus away.

So far, so good. After this however, nothing that we attempted really worked out. We intended to hike up the mountain in the course of two days, see the sunrise on the mountain (just over 3000 meters at the top), and then take the cable car down on the third day.

We wasted some time on the first day in the village at the bottom, so we started climbing way too late. We realised that we probably would not make it even to the first accommodation halfway up the mountain,so we abandoned that plan and instead took the bus close to the top instead. Reaching the area under the summit, darkness was setting in, and as we soon found out, most hotel rooms had been taken by other travellers already. In the end, with nowhere to go and after some fierce negotiations with various hotels, we had to settle for a damp, completely overpriced room (actually by far the most expensive and awful room I have stayed in in China). With a big storm raging outside our window, there was nothing left to do for the night but to sit in the room, munch some instant noodles and call it a day. Even the hot foot-bath Karen attempted to warm her up failed due to the bowl leaking, which resulted in half the floor of our room being under water a few minutes later.

The next morning, we had set the alarm to 0430h to make it to the top of the mountain in time for sunrise. Standing in the cable car however, we soon realised that this would remain wishful thinking: Outside the cable car, thick mist covered everything. Sure enough, once at the top, the only thing we could see was a grey wall of fog and clouds.

So having neither climbed the mountain nor seen the sunrise, we at least wanted to walk down to enjoy the supposedly beautiful scenery. However, as it had rained all day before the path down was extremely slippery and as there was close to zero visibility, we abandoned that plan as well and walked down the paved road, eventually hitching a lift in a minivan full of Chinese climbers of roughly our age. These guys had successfully climbed the mountain in the previous two days, which did not really lift our spirits, rather reminding us of the complete failure our undertaking of climbing Emei Shan had been.

I guess what made the whole episode so annoying for us was that up to that point pretty much everything we had done on our travels so far had turned out to be just perfect in the end. So we kind of expected this good fortune to continue, but of course one can never say which way things are going when you are on the road. After recapitulating the experience and the mistakes we made however, I am sure the next part of the journey will be great again. Fingers crossed.

Next stop: Chengdu (Sichuan Province, China).



To view my photos, have a look at pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).

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