Climb 8000 Steps - Receive Free Souvenir As Hero ”Magic, Can’t Wait”

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It is 4am, the air is chilly but not cold, a surprising amount of noise is being made upstairs and I need to pee. After 2 minutes of enduring my bladder, I clamber down from the top bunk. Shaking Jakub and Ype awake and sprinting to the bathroom in a dazed state. Time to witness the sunrise on Mt. Hua.

The day before we had arrived at the base of the mountain with backpacks on, a Dutch guy(Ype from Pingyao entry), Jakub(Czech workhorse who we met on the bus) and I began to tackle the ‘Soldier’s Pass’ method of ascent. This way is shorter, yet steeper than the way we came ended up coming down. As a first point, Jakub had just spent the last 6 days on a glacier so as I struggled to carry a fleece and two packs of instant noodles(they were big noodles), Jakub carried his whole backpack, ice treads, walking sticks, sleeping bag and countless other ‘hike on a glacier’ type equipment…in the words of Ali G - “Respek”

Having read Ben Beiske's blog about the beauty of the Mt. Hua, one of the five sacred mountains in China, I knew I had to climb it. Call it instinct, call it my manhood, there are some things you just have to do. Everest…not yet, but thousands of stairs, that I can do. Taoist monks would historically endure the 2000+ meter climb as a sacred passage to the temples on the peaks within the sky and we followed in their footsteps. Telling stories of our respective countries, we made the trek upward reaching the North Peak with the setting of the sun. Having read a number of sources, danger didn’t seem to loom in our future as many of the near vertical stairways had been re-diverted to safer/less adventurous paths. A cable car had been built, but we felt the need as men to conquer this mountain with our blood(not really) and sweat(plenty).

As stated in Beijing entry, I suck at haggling so we settled for one of the four hotels on the top of the mountain, the 100Y price didn’t seem so bad.

“You crazy man! We barge it” commented Jakub “We pay 60Y!”

At this point, my teachings of finance from Prof Bolton came flooding back. Let us think about our situation

1. We are in a pure sellers market as we are on the top of a cliff
2. We are tired and need sleep
3. There is little competition
4. We are dead tired and really need sleep

Ahhh, but this China. 65Y each and we’ve got ourselves three beds on the top. All rational finance thrown out the window….

A picture tells a thousand words and my American is sub-par, so there are no more uses of beautiful, spectacular, stupendous, really really beautiful that I can use to describe the cliffs of Mt. Hua. Luckily, I took many pictures, some of which are here.

We flipped a coin at the top of the mountain whether to take 5 hour walk back - which I am now happy we did. We may have walked for 11 hours altogether the second day and my calves were putty for the next three days, but no amount of tourist attractions and souvenir shops can take away from untouched natural beauty.

And no, we did not see a sun-rise

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Photos

Locks
Chinese hang locks throughout the mountain for luck - I hung the mental image of a lock

Just for Show
These stairs were blocked off for safety purposes..

Noodles
Pots of noodles are key to survival in China, why not eat one at two thousand meters up?

Real stairs
Still damn steep

Sun...sort of
It wanted to come through the clouds

5am picture
We were the first on East Peak

Priceless
Jakub's face after having found out that there were still a couple of thousand stairs still left

Never Found My Free Gift
And I was looking forward to that. Does that still make me a hero though?

Comments

[Sophie]

WOW
That's GREAT view! I'm now at home enjoying your pics. LOVE your trip.

[Lexi]

I want. Did you put a "Lexi owns this" flag up top? If not...shame on you. P.S. I feel that you should bring your cute new friends home for the delight of all female friends.