UNESCO World Heritage listed Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) is located in southern Anhui province in eastern China. It’s a frequent subject of Chinese traditional paintings and literature and one of the country’s leading tourist destinations. Its magnificent scenery features soaring pink/yellow granite peaks and plunging precipices decorated with elegant small pine trees and oceans of cloud. It’s a challenging but very rewarding place to walk around and admire the great views. Work on the 60,000 granite steps that go up and down the various peaks reputedly began 1,500 years ago.
From Shaoyang we caught a bus to Hengyang and from there an overnight train to Tunxi (Huangshan City) near the base of Huangshan. We were met outside the railway station at 4am by a crowd of touts already on the job selling bus tickets, maps, ponchos, gloves and walking sticks. From here it was an hour's ride by mini-bus to Taiping town on the north side of Huangshan where we hired a taxi to take us up through the foothills to the bottom station of the Taiping cable car. Each compartment holds a hundred or so people and the swaying ride to the summit provided dramatic views.
We checked into the Xihai Hotel just below the summit and once well hydrated and heavily self-medicated with Toblerone, struck out on a seven hour hike through the West Sea Canyon and on to Bright Top Peak in time to see the sun set. The canyon walk was spectacular with every bend and tunnel through the rock opening to a dramatic new vista. No less spectacular was the path itself. For much of the way there was nowhere to hew out a path – the granite cliffs were simply too sheer. But that hasn’t stopped the ever-ingenious Chinese – in several places they’ve concreted a path to the cliff faces! No place for vertigo sufferers. Or for those who suffer serious knee ailments either as the trek falls a thousand feet to the canyon bottom, then rises 1,800 feet to Bright Top Peak, before falling 800 feet back to the starting point. And nearly all of the vertical change is achieved with granite steps, not sloping paths. By the time we tottered back into our hotel at 7pm, well after dark, our own knees were throbbing a bit but we felt fulfilled at having completed such a beautiful hike.
The following day we were too sore to cover a similar distance but we managed to cover a circuit near the summit, passing by Flying-over Rock, Pine of Unity, Refreshing Terrace and Lion Peak.
If you came to China and had time for only one mountain and you chose Huangshan, it would be an excellent choice. But your knees may not thank you.
