My visit to Hua Shan (华山)

Anyone who has talked to me about my China trip knows that one of the high points of my trip was going to be a visit to Hua Shan, one of China's 5 sacred mountains.  Hua Shan is about a 2 hour drive from Xi'An, and I've gotten some mixed advice about whether to try to do the trip in one day or 2 (or 3).  The chick at my hotel suggested I could do it in a single day, if I caught the first bus (7am) so I thought I'd give that a try.  Worst case I could find someplace to stay over for a night.

I got up early to catch the 603 bus to the train station (where I would transfer to the Hua Shan bus) and right off the bat two 603 buses sped by without even slowing down.  What the heck?  I waited another 15 minutes and then just grabbed a cab.

The Hua Shan bus indeed took about 2 hours to get to Hua Shan.  I met a couple of Chinese tourists on board who explained to me that their plan was to take the cable car part  way up, and then spend the day hiking around the peaks.  It would save 3 hours of hiking from the base, which is just "ordinary, and you can't really see anything."  Then they invited me to join them for the day.  So I did, why not?  Their English names were Anthony and Michael (I won't try to use their Chinese names, I have enough trouble remembering my own) and they were taking a few days off between graduating from university and starting work.  It was a last minute trip - they made the decision to come to Xi'An on Friday, boarded the train on Saturday, and arrived in Xi'An 6am Sunday morning.  Then by 7am they were on the bus to Hua Shan chatting with me.

We took the cable car up to the North Peak (1561m).  This is a 1.5 km ride.  From the North Peak we hiked around to the other 3 peaks (East 2100m, South 2160m and West 2038m) which we all felt was a very productive day of hiking!

(Here is a map of the mountain: http://www.huangshantour.com/english/map/huashanmap.asp so you can follow along at home.)

Here are some highlights:

Michael and Anthony were a bit frightened on the ride up, but were then quite lackadaisical about the whole "2000m cliff" thing once we got to the top.  Weird.

1.5 km cable car ride to the North peak.

Me at the North Peak, with a view of the East and West peaks in the background.  Right below my arm you can see hikers on the Heavens Ladder and Green Dragon Ridge.

Up Heavens Ladder.

Yes the drop over the edge goes right down to the bottom.  At this point only about 1600m.

The next part of the trail, climbing at almost a 90 degree angle.  It gets worse later on!

You wonder how they build these temples at the peaks?  They hire coolies to carry the materials up 50kg at a time.  These guys hike right from the bottom, with tourists bustling past them the whole way.  I'd guess they can each make about 1 trip per day.

There is a tradition here where you get your name (or the name of your loved one) engraved in a lock, and then you lock the lock to one of the chains at the summit.  There are tens of thousands of locks along all the chains.  The red ribbons are attached to some of the locks.  You can see them in pretty much every picture.

Did I mention it gets worse?  The vertical path behind me is at a greater than 90 degree angle.  Which basically means you're hanging over backwards.  At least it's only 30 feet high.  Unlike Falcon Swallow Cliff (more on that one later).

Here's a view from above.

Me at the East Peak.  Note the death grip on the chain.

Another view of the East Peak.  Note the 2000m drop about a foot past the chain (which now contains imprints from my hand, from my death grip).

Another view of Up Heavens Ladder and Green Dragon Ridge.

Remember Falcon Swallow Cliff?  It's similar to the previous "vertical" path, except the drop is 2000m rather than 30 ft.  It's one of two areas that's off the main trail.  You pay an extra few bucks and they attach a harness to you, because it's kind of dangerous (even by Hua Shan standards).  I couldn't get a good pic of the cliff, but here's where you get to.

This path is just a series of steps cut in the rock, but it's a safe 6-7 feet from the 2000m drop.

This is the second excursion from the main trail - Sky-way Trail.  Basically a couple of boards strapped to the top of the 2000m drop.  You're harnessed in, but did I mention the 2000m drop?  You can just see the people on the Sky-way trail in the above picture.  (It's not the 1-ft wide trail on the bottom corner.  I actually walked out on that one, all the way to the little umbrella, which is where the guy is that attaches your harness.  See the little orange flag under the umbrella?

Here we are at that little orange flag.  Michael and Anthony are debating whether to go on the trail (they did).  For me there was no debate (I didn't).

Another view of Sky-way Trail.  These people are crazy.  I've read that the safety harness has been in use "since 2005".  What the heck did people do before 2005???  I've also read that there have been rumours of tourists falling periodically (before 2005).

From the South to West peaks - I don't know the official name of this trail so I'll call it Scary Trail (although this name applies to lots of trails at Hua Shan).

Me at West Peak.  Note the death grip on the chain.  Some of the post are just inches from the edge.

A view of Scary Trail from the other end.  One side slopes gently down but the other side is a sheer cliff.

This is the cliff side of Scary Trail, also where the West peak cable car emerges.

We didn't have time to hike back to the North Peak to take the cable car back down, so we took the cable car from the West Peak.  This was a miracle of modern engineering!  This ride was 4 km in length and passed over incredible drops.

"How the heck did they make this?" I asked.  (I figured they were Chinese so they must know.)  "We don't know.  In China nothing is impossible."  After my visit to Hua Shan and the cable car ride down I believe it!

After the bus ride back to Xi'An we went to Hui Min Jie (the Muslim quarter) for "yang rou pao mo", a local dish that's kind of like a lamb soup:

I felt like a real tour guide because I knew how to get to Hui Min Jie, having been here almost a week and all.

Anyways it was quite a spectacular day!  I feel like taking the cable car up was kind of cheating, and I may try to do another trip to Hua Shan just to do the full hike up from the bottom (and for example I'd like to see "Changing Mind Rock", which is right before "Thousand Foot Precipice" - check out the map: http://www.huangshantour.com/english/map/huashanmap.asp).

Now I can relax for a few days!