Huangshan (Yellow Mountain)

As usual, this is about the pictures, so click on them to see them full-sized.

Huangshan - or Yellow Mountain - was to be one of the highlights of our China trip for me. And it was. Even though I missed most of the time there.

I ended up developing a really good dose of bronchitis a day or two before we went to the mountain. By the time we got there, there wasn't much left of me. Luckily, this was about the only place we spent more than one night in a hotel, so I had a chance to just be sick in bed for a while and get better. Cyn took such good care of me. I don't think I would have eaten if not for her. She just stayed with me the whole time.

You take a cable tram to the top of the mountain - about 5000 feet up. When you get there, this is what you see. Simply spectacular. We got really lucky and arrived on a day when it was sunny. Our guide told us it rains about 250 days a year on the mountain.

The next thing you see is how you will get around the mountain. Stairs. And more stairs. All of the paths throught the mountain are stairs. The hotel is a significant distance from the tram. How far is hard to estimate as there is as much up and down stairs as there is distance to the hotel. It is about a 50 minute walk on stairs. You take a few breaks along the way to catch your breath. You carry everything in that you need.

There is a fairly nice hotel up there. Cyn and I got lucky and got a pretty good room with a beautiful view (See the first picture in this post). Our guide told us about the hotel along the way. He set the expectations fairly low, but it was better than expected. The most interesting fact he told us was how goods get up to the hotel. There are porters who carry everything up un their backs - 200 pounds at a time. He also told us that they prefer not to have their photograph taken - which proved to be true - or I would have an image here to share. They carry literally everything up. Food, drink, toilet paper - everything. They carry it up a 5000 foot mountain on their backs. This fact really made me consider every single item I consumed while we were there.

There is a tradition of leaving locks with the engraved names of special people locked to a cable on the side of the mountain. There are probably thousands of locks there. Cyn and I had our names carved on a lock and had a very romantic moment locking it onto its home with a great view of the mountain.

After the day of our arrival, it pretty much rained the rest of the time, leaving me to sleep in peace. I snuck out with the camera a couple of times, though I must admit, I remember very little of it all.

I leave you with a B&W picture taken upon our sunny arrival on the mountain. It is a unique and beautiful place.