This week we went to Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain). It's only about a 3-hour bus ride, and is thought to be the most beautiful mountain in China. The mountain is only about 6,200 feet, but don't let this deceive you. It's many sharp peaks make it a tough climb. Our plan was to go up the easier (and less steep) eastern route (5 miles), have lunch at the summit, then come down the tougher and more beautiful western side (9 miles). This was our plan, and it was going beautifully until somewhere between getting on the Western trail and getting to the bottom, we made a wrong turn.
This turn took us down into the canyon formed between the many peaks--since we were going down, we figured we were in the right place... until the path started going up again. And then it went up some more. Our second mistake was following some Chinese tourists who seemed to know their way, leading us to take a second wrong turn and ending up back at same peak of the mountain that we had left 4 1/2 hours earlier.
We were exhausted, frustrated, filthy and no longer enjoying the hiking. Without enough time or energy to hike back down on a path actually leading to the bottom, we decided to take the cable car, only to find out it quit running at 5pm.
So, we were stuck. Many tourists plan to spend the night on top of the mountain to watch the sunset and sunrise; but we hadn't wanted to stay overnight, so we hadn't booked a room. After three tries, Matt found us a place to sleep. This morning, everything seemed a bit better, and we did see the 5am sunrise; after which, we immediately began walking down the same way we had come up the first time, determined to get off the mountain and be done with the whole thing.
We estimate we walked approximately 17 miles up and down uneven stairs, although our legs feel as if could have easily have been 30 miles. Things definitely didn't go as planned, but the views were amazing--definitely the most dramatic mountain peaks we've ever seen. And, hey, we have a good story out of it--I'm sure we'll find it all funny when the pain in our calf muscles wears off.
