Advertisement
Published: October 31st 2010
We ventured to our 12th province in China or should I be Chinese politically correct and say "We have traveled to 2 municipalities, 7 provinces, 1 autonomous region, 2 special districts(Hong Kong SAR & Macau SAR) and Taiwan.
When I typed into Google search "How many provinces are in China?" this is the answer from Wiki answers == All together there are 34 province-level administrative units in China, including 4 municipalities, 22 Provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 2 special districts, and Taiwan, which is claimed as a province but is not currently under the administration of the People's Republic of China.
Complicated China Huangshan translates to Yellow(huang) Mountain(shan) Its that time of year again when all the schools in China take a few days off of teaching and have a field day, or sports meeting as they call it. The students and some teachers can take this opportunity to showcase their physical talents in track and field events. We like to take this opportunity to travel somewhere for the long weekend. We were actually supposed to be in the opening ceremony performance, but being China no one really asked us about this, and well we weren't going to do
it anyways. Attention to all Chinese schools; if you want to hire performers put that in your list of requirements, otherwise we will stick to teaching in the classroom and not singing and dancing for your entertainment.
We found that the Hangzhou West Bus Station had plenty of scheduled departures to Cun xi (Huangshan City) so we opted to take a night buss on Wednesday night. The forecast called for clear skies and a likelihood of some rain later in the weekend. We didn't want to take any chances with rain so we left as early as we could. We got tour hostel around 9:30 in the evening. The weather was significantly colder than Hangzhou since it was much further West and higher in Elevation.
The next day we woke up and boarded the 15 rmb bus that picked us up at our Hostel. We headed to the local bus depot to pick up more passengers heading to the mountain, which is about a one hour drive from the city. There a few locals added to our company and an Australian guy with his Indonesian girlfriend and her brother. We had met a couple from Los Angeles at
1st break
it was 2.8km almost straight up for the 1st portion of the dayour hostel the night before and we talked with and the new passengers all the way to the main gate of the mountain. The admission was 230 rmb per person into the park. Elyse and I decided to follow the Lonely Planets advice and walk up the East entrance as it was called the easier hard way up the mountain and the following day walk down the harder and longer West Entrance. We had to get another bus which took us to that spot and spent another 13 kuai to get there. For the less adventurous you can take and 80 rmb and 30 minutes cable car ride to the top and forgo the 2 1/2 hrs hike, but we were down for the hike.
The hike up was virtually a giant staircase that wound its way up the steep mountain side. There were very little flat sections where you could relax and take in the amazing views. We made it half way up to the mountain where we decided to take our first long break to catch our breath. We stayed at this spot for about 20 minutes and drank plenty of water, ate our M&Ms, dates, and
Porter makes 5 kuai per trip
This is how they get supplies to the top of the mountain. chips. During the entire way up there were dozens of locals carrying supplies up to the hotels at the top of the mountain. Apparently the cable car company and the hotels had no agreement for shipping things up that way. The guys carried anything from gasoline tanks to vegetables and water tied to sticks that they supported on their shoulders. We decided that it wouldn't be fair to complain about the price of food seeing as to how it makes its way to the top.
After this break we were forced to stop more frequently since the elevation was getting higher and the steps seemed to be getting steeper. We made sure to take some pictures along the way so that we could show everyone the amazing terrain of the trail. It took us 2 1/2 hours to reach the top of the mountain and another 30 minutes to reach our Hotel. We checked into our 600 rmb a night hotel, which is way more than we wanted to pay, but our options were a little limited. We could have take the 80 rmb cable car and hike from East to West but we didn't want to rush the
experience. The hotel was quite an eyesore in that it lacked any charm or mountainous feel to it. It was basically a typical concrete box that you see everywhere else in China. We stayed not inside the main building but directly in front in little Chinese style cabin structures which were separated by a courtyard and basketball court of all things. The rooms had a magnificent views of either the massive hotel structure which blocked out everything else or the roof of the cabin in front of you. It really didn't matter since we didn't really plan on spending much time in the room and it was still a much better option than camping like some people elected to do on the basketball court. Oh and did I mention that it was freezing at the top, literally. there were icicles hanging from tree tops and patches of ice could be find along the trail. Not ideal camping weather if you ask me.
That afternoon after eating lunch at the hotel we ventured out to Purple peak, some 2 kilometers away, so that we could watch the sun set. We were not sure how long it would take so we
made sure that we had plenty of time to get there. We realized that the map of the mountain really didn't depict the actual trail at all. That which appeared to be flat was actually a straight vertical hike where you had to descent 1/2 a mile down and then 1/2 a mile back up. We made it to the spot to watch the sunset and realized we had a few hours before the sun went down. We were also at a spot in the mountain where we were exposed to the wind. It was cold up at the peak and there were plenty of icicles covering the trees just to remind us of how cold it was. In the end we just couldn't make it and decided that with 50 minutes to go till sunset we needed to start heading back. We also had no flash light and didn't want to count on anyone else to help us find our way back if the trail lights didn't work properly. On the way back my knee started to feel a little tender from all of the walking so I was looking forward to going back to our room and having
a good nights sleep. We ate dinner and at the hotel and went back to our room where we fell asleep around 9 pm.
The next morning the alarm clock sounded at 5:30 but I had been up twenty minutes earlier since that is when our neighbors woke up. The walls were paper thin and you could hear everyones conversation. During the night I could hear the man next to us snoring and I could also hear the guy on the opposite end of their room pounding on the wall trying to get him to shut up. It was pretty funny because he pounded for five minutes with no success and must have called the front desk since that rooms phone rang shortly thereafter. Though out the night I was awoken by this guy's snoring but would hear his wife mumble something to him and the snoring ceased. All and all I got a good nights sleep but my knee felt pretty sore in the morning. I had surgery on both my knees in 2003 after a motorcycle crash but my knees have never really felt the same since.
We headed out to "Refreshing Terrace" which is famous
for its sunrises at about 5:40. There were droves of people climbing the pathway to get a glimpse of the sunrise. By the time we got there the area was packed. I somehow managed to climb out onto a rock and get a pretty good spot. After living in China for a year I have mastered the technique of finding my way through crowds. After a while of negotiating my way on top of this rock through dozens of people I found that I had actually landed myself the best seat in the house. I guess the others were a little more hesitant about getting that close to the edge. I froze my butt off for 40 or so minutes before the sun actually came up. During that time I thought of the times we attempted to watch the sunrise at Jeju, Korea, and Siem Reap, Cambodia but came up empty handed due to the cloud cover. That would not be the case this day and the sun broke through the clouds and it was a pretty good sunrise. We immediately headed down to our room and slept for a few more hours.
We woke up bought some snacks
for the trail and headed out around 9:30 am. Our plan was to head towards the Western portion of the park going through the "Grand Canyon" and passing by the "Fairy Land Bridge" before heading down on the Western cable cars. The morning started out amazing and we made good progress. As we entered the trail head for the "Grand Canyon" we took a little break to eat some bananas and drink some water. The views on this side of the park were breathtaking. There is no way that a picture can truly capture how massive and impressive this mountain really appears. As we descended the trail we found ourselves walking over concrete planks that hung from the side of the cliffs with the ground some 3,000 feet below our feet. The park is situated on the mountain anywhere between 500 meters (1645 feet) at its lowest point to 1864 meters (6,132 feet) at its highest point.
On our way down about half way into the canyon we could make out the "Fairy Land Bridge". I was a little disappointed that we were not able to find it as I really wanted to take some pictures from that location.
There was no indication as to the specific elevation on the trail but if I were to guess we hiked down close to 3,800 feet before we realized that we had to hike right back up that same height. In the end we had no choice but to climb our way back up to one of the highest peaks of the park. At this time my knee really started giving me troubles, every step down the stair gave me a stinging pain in my knee. The only positive to hiking all the way up was that my knee seemed to be fine ascending the mountain.
This next section of the trail was by far the best that the mountain had to offer. It really wasn't a trail as it was more of a suspended walk way thousands of feet above the ground. I am afraid of heights and opted to take the more inside part of the walkway. Although it was only about 5 feet at its widest it gave me a lot more comfort. By the time we got 3/4 of the way up the trail seemed to level off and we went through a tunnel and emerged
hiking up to Red/Purple Cloud Peak
name depends on which map you look at on the other side of a valley. there was a rest stop where we spent 20 minuets eating snacks and taking in the view. My knee now hurt on both the going up and the going down aspect of the hike so the rather level portion of the trail was a much needed break. We continued hiking to the top where we went through one more tunnel and came face to face with the "Fairy Land Bridge". We were both excited that we had made it to what we thought was the completion of the harder section of the trial. Based on the map we had we really had no reason to believe this but rather hoped for this. Also to note that anything I did other than stand still hurt. The pain in my knee was become unbearable as I grunted my way up even further up the mountain. We already traveled a distance of nearly 8 kilometers already and found ourselves descending then ascending over 3,000 feet in elevation just to find that the next marker on our map, Tianhai Hotel, was still another 2.5 kilometers away.
I hobbled my way up the trail and really had
no relief until I sat down. Even the flatter areas were difficult for me to walk. I feared that I may have strained or tore one of my ligaments and was only making it worse. I had no other option but to carry on. From the hotel area we had another 3 1/2 kilometers to go. I bought a walking stick for 5 kuai and used it to support some of my weight. It was really built for someone that was 5 inches shorter than me but it was all I could get. There were no more flat sections of the trail as it was either straight up or straight down. I cursed the mountain as we got to the next difficult section called "Hundred Ladders Path. It was long but I had managed to cane and crawl my way up this section. At the top a Chinese couple that we continually ran into along the trail started laughing. They felt bad when they realized that I needed the thing. These two were truly crazy as they started hiking at 6 am from the Eastern Entrance and would end up hiking the entire trail in one day. This is over
25 kilometers and would end up taking them close to 10 hours. During this time the woman hiked only in fake converse shoes and the man would stop for smoke breaks here and there. I was amazed since they didn't really look like the most healthy people in the world. They spoke only Chinese and were very friendly as they said that they would accompany us down to the cable car in case we needed any help.
They encouraged us along the way down the trail and I had learned that they were locals and lived nearby. It was likely that this was not their first time hiking the entire mountain in one day. After some 50 minutes we had finally made it to the cable car station. We said our goodbyes to our trail companions and headed down the mountain in the cable car. We were thrilled that we finally had made it to the bottom. It took six hours and we hiked close to 15 kilometers on that day. It was an amazing experience and we are very proud of our accomplishment.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.379s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 17; qc: 76; dbt: 0.205s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
MOM
non-member comment
HOly Cow
You two are on an adventure each day!!! I am sure glad I was not along for that trip! I would have needed more than a walking stick!!! Beautiful pictures....scaring steps!!!! Sure hope Pete's knees are feeling better! !!!!