Climbing Mount Tai'shan

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I first read about Mount Tai'shan in Michael Palin's book "Full Circle" and added it to the China 'must do' list!! It is a total of 6660 steps to the top and it's believed that you will live for 100 years if you make it all the way. Many Chinese emperors have done the climb, some more than once and many people make the pilgrimage to the top each year.

It said in the guide book that it would take about two hours to get to the 'Midway to Heaven Gate' and another 2 hours to get to the 'South Gate to Heaven' so we began the climb early, starting at just after 10am. Initially it wasn't too bad with a few steps and then flat ground, but as it went on it became just steps, as you can see in the photos. We passed many people en route carrying things, including a guy who was carrying crates of beer to the top. We got overtaken by some crazy old ladies who were very spritly despite their obvious age. We also had to pose for many photos with the other Chinese climbers.

We reached 'midway to heaven' ahead of time in 1hr 45mins, but it was from here that the real climbing began. There were lots more streatches of just steps, our legs began to feel like lead and we rested more often. We reached the 'south gate to heaven' 2 hours later so were very pleased with our progress - but my celebrations were short lived as it soon became clear that we weren't at the top of the mountain yet and we still had more steps to climb - Laura wasn't too happy!!

The summit was at the Jade Temple, so we had lunch and then started the final climb. The mountain is a total height of 1545 metres and it was a relief when we found the temple and made it to the top. The view from the top was great and we could see many of the steps we'd walked up.

Our legs were very shaky now and the few steps we had to go down to get the cable car back to the bottom were enough to realise that walking all the way to the bottom would be a mistake. The cable car down was cool and we could see the route we'd taken. It only went to the midway point and we had to catch the bus the rest of the way down.

Climbing Mount Tai'shan was a really fun thing to do and one of my highlights of China so far.

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