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Huangshan was a place of indescribable beauty. Pictures don't do it justice. You simply have to visit to experience the vast, steep, ruggedness and observe the dynamics of the moving, wispy fog (if you are lucky).
"Safety" consists of low railings like this, "protecting" you from 1000-foot vertical drops...
The Chinese haven't heard of the term "switchback". When they want to build a path to go up the side of a mountain, they just build hundreds and hundreds of stairs straight up...
This is the view from 2500 stairs above where we stayed --Xihai Hotel (the black-roofed white building):
Linda and I just had to go hike to Lotus Peak, the highest of the 87 peaks in Huangshan. It is the peak on the right.
"Quad-burn" was the word of the day. Linda had to wait for Dave a lot:
Again, no switchbacks. Forget going AROUND something. Those two workers are each carrying several 10-foot long 2"x6" pieces of wood...a total of more than 120 lbs...on their shoulders...up 300 stairs...then 200 more.
We made it to the top of Lotus Peak! It was 45 minutes before sunset and we had 8000 stairs between us and the hotel...of course we did bring flashlights, but it would still be scary navigating the stairs at night.
This is Swordfish Rock. 'kay, I just made that up:
Sunset!
We got up at 5am to hike out to view the sunrise. It was NOT going to happen. But even better than sun, we were treated to a dynamic show of moving fog. First, all you could see was pure white. The thick, solid fog was blowing by at 20 miles an hour. Then, all of the sudden, it would clear up and 1000-foot craggy peaks and valleys would appear. 30 seconds later, the fog would mysteriously swallow up the view again.
Here, the three sisters Linda, Elaine, and Lisa daringly lean against a railing over a large dropoff. The hotels provide super-thick parkas to wear, but they still put on everything else they owned that was warm underneath that.
At the Emerald Pool area, we hiked thru this bamboo forest. Nearby was a similar bamboo forest where actual scenes from 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' were filmed.
Here is a porter carrying 150 lbs of supplies up the mountain. All food, drinks, supplies, laundry, etc. are carried up the mountain by porters. He gets $6 for carrying the load up more than 5 miles up several thousand stairs. If he doesn't like that, there are literally hundreds of other people waiting in line for his job.
What is holding these stairs up?!! If you survive the 50 foot fall off the side and manage to hang on to the base of that tree, you're lucky. Otherwise its another 800 feet down to the next convenient landing spot:
A tiny bridge over a deep crevasse (we couldn't see the bottom due to the fog...probably it was better that way):
These stairs serve one purpose only. They prove that you are not afraid of heights. Carl proves that he is not afraid of a sheer vertical drop into the fog.
