I discovered that the pix were taken at Hua Shan, one of the five sacred Taoist mountains in China, just outside of Xi'an. Today I went to the mountain.
I didn't do that hike.
I did do the easier version, though. But for the sake of clarification, this is the easy hike.
It was 6km of walking, which isn't much, but it was all straight up. My plan was to take one route up, spend the night on the mountain, watch the sunrise, then take the other way down.
Well, the weather was lousy and getting lousier. This was the view from the north peak looking to the south peak.
There's a line of people visible in the bottom center of the photo. The line goes up and over the ridge, then down and over to the left and then back up to the right. It was a complete logjam. On an overcast Monday afternoon!
I didn't fight my way through the crowd to the south peak. And the crowd ruined my vision of a peaceful night on the mountain. And there probably wouldn't be much of a sunset or sunrise. And I have to catch a train tomorrow. So I took the cable car down and caught a bus back to Xi'an.
OK, so I wussed out. But even the cable car is pretty darn scary!
There are snack bars every few hundred yards. They get their supplies the only way they can, by carrying them up. Any illusions I might have had about how tough and rugged I am vanished when I encountered this guy.
I don't know what's in the red boxes, but he carried whatever it is and two cases of half-liter water bottles to the top of the mountain.
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