Best Thing In The World Are Shared

Wednesday, November 11 @ 9:08 PM

When you visit China, you definitely have to go climb a big mountain. Standing at 2160m high and 120km away from Xi'an, the famous Mt Huashan is our choice mountain to climb.
We left for Huashan from our hotel at 5PM. The bus ride was 2 full hours long. We had dinner at some streetside stall before we start walking up towards the entrance. The entrance is some 30mins climb from the very start(where the road and civilisation ends). By the time we bought our tickets and were ready to leave the entrance behind, it was 10PM exactly. Our mood and energy was still very lively and high.
The lower slopes of Huashan are all climbed by slopes(which means gradient no need for steps), getting steeper as we climb, and since they are not like steps, which put greater pressure on our knees, it is quite easy going UP. We have rest pitstops once every half hour and I think this start-stop momentum is bad for our motor. The path, meanwhile, is still nicely paved and there are still street lights along the way. But as we climb further, the slopes soon dissappeared to become steps. It's flight after flight of steps, seperated by some flat ground inbetween.
Climb, climb, climb. A few flight of stairs in school wont tell you the fit and not-so-fit apart, but multiply that by a few hundreds and you can find the answer. Jesper and Jerren are always the last and they are barely hanging on all the time. People like this are trapped in a very vicious cycle; The front few is way ahead and when they have a break to wait for the back few, J&J are still climbing their way up. And when they finally reach the rest stop, the rest will start leaving again, giving them no time to rest. This happened to them all the time.
Fast forward: At around 2-3AM @ 1500-1700m elevation, we had a break. Our female teacher brought out her homemade tu tou shi bing and having not eaten anything since dinner, I wolfed the bing down. Hell, although the grilled bing has long hardened, it was the best shit in the world I've eaten. And then it started snowing. Very very fine snow was falling, they said. Having no experience with snow, it looked just like fine drizzle to me. I finally experienced snow! But since its just like rain to me, it doesnt count at all. Like in the movies, right before reaching the peak stands an obstacle. And the obstacle comes in the form of a 89degree natural stone wall. You HAVE to scale the wall to reach the peak. So what did the crazy ancient Chinaman did? They chipped off the wall face to make steps out of it and dropped a couple of chains down the wall. When everyone saw that, they were like,"What the fuck! Eh guys look at that, soo fucking dangerous la, Im not gonna climb it.." When I saw the wall basically I had this feeling too. Its like in the adventure movies you come across something seemingly impossible and it just takes you breath away. The atmosphere was something like that then. The wall is about 10-15m high, and there's absolutely no ard-ur-groin safety ropes or similar. You miss a step or slip off the chain and that's the end of you. Having said so much, we never scaled the wall. Crazy enough to cut into the walls, the chinaman was surely smart and strong enough to carry a steel staircase up 2000m elevation. All of us used the staircase to go over the wall.
We reached the peak at 5am. 7 hours to reach the top from the entrance. I'll explain the remainder along with the photos below.

Day 35

Group shot before leaving

A break at one of the many rest shops.

Day 36

Almost every shop sell cucumbers at RMB1 each.

This is the hyper steep flight of steps. 80 degrees? Its so steep a seated Jesper looks like he's standing.

Another show of its steepness.

The peak! It was super windy and there was occasional super fine drizzle-like snow. Temperature must be hovering ard 0deg C. And what was I wearing? A windbreaker over a t-shirt + jeans over long johns and highly vented adizero shoes. Each time the wind blew, I had orgasmic reactions. I almost died there of cold while waiting for the sunrise!

The sunrise never came.

It was very very misty, we were afraid we couldnt see the sunrise. Our fears were founded. As you can see, the dawn broke without any visible rays of light. We never witnessed the sunrise. There was simply too much mist.

2km long cliff.

The mess we left behind.

On our way down from hell. Some couldnt imagine trekking all the way back down, so they took the cable car down. Bad choice, they were missing soo much scenery.

Some slope near the peak.

The mist suddenly cleared up, revealing what it has been hiding all along: breath-taking views that made us all say "Whoa.."

This is not the stone wall, but see my idea of how they 'build' the steps?

Various peaks and attractions of the mountain. We went to almost all the peaks.

Maple leaves

That's Jerren, and thats a 100% pure 'sian' look from him. We are now into our 2nd day of climbing, without any sleep and no breakfast.

Tired? Give me more peaks!!

We are atop north peak.

There are many sights that avoided my eyes on the night up, and this gold thingy is one of them. How did I not see this?

Locks for well-wishes. The key? Throw it down into the abyss.

If there's one view you'll see on Huashan, this is the scenery you''ll see. This is everywhere.

The 2 teachers that followed us up. Both are in their 50s and 60s and they can still climb with us. Respect for them!

I gotta salute these porters man. As if climbing this friggin steep stone mountain wasnt hard enough, they still had to balance 2 boxes btw their shoulders. And how much are they paid for this super-human effort? 20RMB.

Their skills balancing stick and boxes are at expert levels, as demostrated by a smart porter who sang and performed with his empty boxes/pole on his way down.

These products they carry are all for provision shops in the mountains.

Remember I mentioned the leather gloves are my best buy? Huashan has soo much steel chains to cling on for dear life, my RMB13 gloves was my palmsaver and lifesaver.

Sometimes when you are at 2000m elevation, you wonder how these lamp posts that are lighting your way gets up there. You are very curious. Heli?

Behind me are natural 'water drains'

At night this path had white LED-like lights running along it. If you see this and think this is whoaseh-able, think of it at night, when you see a long white light at about 70deg snaking its way up to heaven. Last night, while we were still quite low down, whenever we glance up, we see faraway heaven lampposts and white lights shooting their way up heaven. It's like some cartoon game.

One gust, the mist comes in and everything's covered again.

At night we cant see things like these. If anyone of us was playful at night..

That's Jesper with the orange DC bag. DC bag for Huashan? Maybe that's why he's soo shagged and his legs were wobbling their way down. Get a timbuk2, friend.