Hua Shan

A few months ago when I was hiking along the stunning Tiger Leaping Gorge, I was surprised and unbelieving when one of the girls I was with said it wasn't even the most beautiful place she had been in China.  I personally though the Tiger Leaping Gorge was the most breathtaking place I had ever been in my life, so I wanted to check out this place that could possibly trump it.  So this past week I headed to Hua Shan to see if it lived up to the hype. 

At the start of my hike, still full of energy.

Hua Shan (Mount Hua) is just a quick 5-hour train ride from Baoding on the new high speed railway, so it was the perfect trip to make in my last week here.  I took the train on Wednesday afternoon, got complemented on my Chinese by a taxi driver, spent the night in a hotel at the base of the mountain, and started walking on Thursday morning.  The day was impossibly hot, and the price of water went up exponentially the higher I climbed, but the scenery made up for everything.  Hua Shan is known as the most dangerous mountain in China. I mean, it's still a Chinese mountain, so there are stairs and handrails all the way up, but they don't necessarily make it safe.  There were several sections that were so steep it was little more than a ladder carved into the rock itself, and paths that curved along the edge of a cliff with only a thin iron chain as a barrier.

It took about four hours to reach the first peak, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the other four peaks.  By the time I reached West Peak, my legs were shaking and the sun was setting, so I settled in to watch.

The locks along the fence are for good luck and happiness, and they were locked all along the mountain.

I spent the night in a hotel on West Peak, got up early and hiked back to North Peak where I caught a cable car and bus back to the train station. Hua Shan was spectacular, but I don't know if I"m quite ready to declare anyplace the most beautiful in China.  From Hua Shan to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, to the rice terraces in Guilin, to the smoggy delights of my hometown Baoding, I can't pick a favorite place in China.