One of the many weird and wonderful creatures that inhabit the national park
This morning we shared a taxi to the entrance of Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) - the 72-peak range lying in the south of Anhui Province, 280 km west of Hangzhou. For the Chinese, Huangshan, along with Guilin, is probably the most famous landscape attraction in the country. We opted not to take the cable car, resisted the sedan chairs and walked the entire route in one day!!! Initially we had planned to stay at the top overnight so that we could see the highly acclaimed sunrise but couldn't find anywhere reasonably priced. There were no vacancies left except for expensive mountain top hotels so we returned the same day back to Tangkou. We climbed the 8km eastern-steps in abut 4 hours, practically crawled to the top of the highest peak and then descended down the 15 km western route just before nightfall. I hadn't done this much exercise in a long time and it felt good.
As I reached the top of the eastern route I noticed a cable car crowd watching me climb the last few steps just before they entered the station. I waved at them and smiled with sweat dripping down my forehead as if to say "look what you're missing". Lotus Flower was the name of the highest peak and is 1800 meters high. I persuaded Ali to do it even with her bad knee (I wasn't going to climb it on my own). It was incredible. We were climbing through clouds following a route hewn out of sheer rock cliffs. The visibility was so low that I could barely see where I was going. Once we reached the summit it was like looking at a Chinese ink landscape. I couldn't believe what I saw - twisted pines growing out of almost vertical craggy rocks rising through the sea of clouds. It was amazing.
The western route was definitely the most challenging but the views were well worth the effort. Surprisingly I only sprained my ankle and didn't break anything. I hobbled out of the exit where we made our way back along the road to Tangkou. It was already dark and the town seemed like it was miles away. We managed to bargain for a motorbike ride back to the hotel off two of the local guys. When we got back to the hotel our legs where shaking like jelly after 10 hours of solid climbing. Anticipating lots of pain tomorrow morning...
