Days 88: Huangshan

Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053200&l=27f91&id=1101094

Dear Chinese Communist Party: It's quite difficult to "close" a mountain.

But, in true CCP form, that doesn’t mean they’re not going to try anyway.

After two hours of hiking straight up the east face of Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain), which is situated in the southeast corner of Anhui province and is about 350km southwest of Shanghai, I reached Guangming Ding (Bright Summit). From there, I could see the two other major peaks-- Lian Hua Feng (Lotus Peak), the highest point on the mountain, and Tiandu Feng (Celestial Peak), a few meters lower. And once I saw them, climbing them was no longer an option—it was a necessity. You know, so I can add them to my lists website under “Mountains Climbed.” (Just kidding. I DON’T have that category. I swear.)

But upon reaching the base of Lotus Peak, I found the gate locked. Now, to those of you who are hikers, this may be a bit confusing: how can a hiking trail even have a gate? Can’t you just hike around it?

My thoughts exactly. Though I must say, it wasn’t quite as simple as all that. The trail to the summit of Lotus Peak first tunneled through a granite rock face, and so there wasn’t really a way “around” the gate. But there was a way over. And as Rick Apple and Mark Parrett can attest, this wouldn’t be the first wrought-iron gate I’d ever climbed.

So I waited until the guard (yes, there are GUARDS on this mountain) was distracted by an attractive girl and then got a running start and hopped the gate. Just in case anyone had seen me, I ran up the steps (yes, there are STEPS on this mountain) for about five minutes (read: until I could run no more) to put some distance between me and my potential tails. And, as a final precaution, I plugged my ears with my iPod ear buds (despite the fact that the iPod that should have been on the other end of the cord was in a trash can in Bangkok), so I could have played dumb—“You were telling me to stop and put my hands where you could see them? Sorry, I had no idea!”

But in the end I don’t think anyone saw me, and if they did they didn’t bother to give chase. I know—so disappointing.

At this point I thought I was out of the woods (well, not literally—ha ha ha), but then I came to a second gate, and this one was well-placed—there was a cliff on one side, a sheer rock face on the other, and a meter of rock above the gate. To get over, I would have to scramble up the rock face and then jump onto the rock that sat atop the gate.

Luckily, I had just done some rock climbing and bouldering in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which was really useful in this situation because it meant that I had no misconceptions about how truly awful I am at climbing rocks. So I took it slowly. But I made it.

Two down, one to go. The last one was supposed to be the hardest, I guess, given that it had spikes along the top of it, but it also didn’t extend far enough to the left, because it was possible to hold onto the fence and swing yourself around (granted, over a nice 30m chasm). So that’s what I did. Oh, and this gate had a sign saying that the peak was closed (the other locked gates had no sign, so had I been caught I would have just played dumb… think the CCP would have gone for it?). But get this—the reason given for the closing was “the protection of the ecological environment.” Please—stone steps are not part of the ecological environment, either, and in climbing the peak I walked on nothing but…stone steps. So don’t tell me I can’t climb the mountain because you’re protecting the natural environment. Your propaganda may work on 1.3 billion people, CCP, but it ain’t working on me.

Anyway, Lotus Peak turned out to be the best of the three (partially because it was the highest, but mostly because in hopping the gates I rid myself of the hordes of Chinese tourists that were climbing all over the other peaks), so I was happy I made it up. When I got back to the first gate and had to climb back over right in front of the guard, he started to walk towards me, but then he stopped. His internal monologue: “Just not worth it.”

I ended up hiking a total of 30km that day, and my knees are now in a good bit of pain, mostly from the 15km hike down (oh boy, was it steep). I think my legs would have felt much better had I been hiking on dirt instead of STONE STEPS, but, oh well.

I met a guy from Barcelona on the way down the mountain (he was surprised that I knew Barcelona was in Catalonia), and when we got back to town we grabbed some food and talked about our travels for a couple hours. He’d just traveled through most of China and Mongolia, and was now headed to SE Asia for a few months and then on to South America for a few more. He also was adamant that Catalonia should be free from Spanish rule. I didn’t even have to coax it out of him.

I had warmed up nicely during the day’s hike, but by the time Albert (my Catalan friend) and I parted ways, I had cooled down and was now quite cold. So I went back to my hotel for a hot shower.

Nice try! As I found out after 30 minutes of charades and broken Chinglish, my hotel only had hot water between 6pm and 8pm. Sweet. It was 4pm, and I was getting colder by the minute. And don’t you go thinking my hotel room was heated. That would be far too easy.

So I went for a run. It warmed me right up. And my knees cursed me the whole way.

And at 6pm I took the most wonderful shower I can remember.

The following morning, with great trepidation, I embarked on my 23-hour train ride to Beijing. But I’ll save that for my next post.