Yesterday was up there with the most breathtaking beauty I’ve ever seen.
The day started with a taxi ride to Xi’an North station. My driver appeared to have mistaken his job for a professional rally driver (or maybe a banger racer). He got me there in one piece, but not before we’d weaved through countless lanes of traffic on the five-lane motorways that serve as the main transport arteries into Xi’an. Every now and again, while executing a lane manoeuvre, he would multitask by winding down his window and dispensing his phlegm onto the road. Nice.
Nevertheless, I made the bullet train to Huashan North. The 150-kilometre journey took barely half an hour, travelling at around 310 kilometres per hour. From there, it was onto a shuttle bus (although the signs delightfully referred to it as the ‘shuffle bus’) for an hour’s journey up into the mountains, before finally boarding the cable car.
For anyone contemplating a visit to Mount Huashan, I would recommend taking the cable car to West Peak. I don’t have the literary expertise to do the voyage over the mountains justice. But it carries you through successive mountain passes and valleys, with increasingly eye popping views of the granite landscape. The drops into the gorges below are outrageous. Watch out for what looks like windows or caves and steps etched into the side of the mountain and see if you can work out how they could have possibly got there.
I started my hike across the mountain, taking in the five main peaks. West peak was filled with Chinese tourists and the views didn’t live up to what we’d seen from the cable car. But once you get to South and East peaks, it just gets better and better. Emerging from the mists below are huge granite edifices that Obelix would have been salivating over. They are decorated with plucky Chinese pine trees - it was like a scene from Jurassic park, before the diansours wreak havoc.
I felt an emotional connection with those alongside me who were seeing what I was seeing. We shared an involuntary exhale of wonder, followed by a shake of the head and a smile.
From South Peak, there was a narrow ridge that snakes its way out towards the neighbouring peaks. Perched at the end is a stone chess pavilion, made from Mount Hua’s own granite, I am guessing. The effort and imagination to put a pavilion like that there was a poignant reminder to me of human being’s need/drive/proclivity to create spaces to abide with nature.
Eventually, I decided to make my descent on foot rather than take the cable car. This involved a fairly brutal 3,500ft descent from North Peak, and I absolutely destroyed my quads in the process. But it was worth it and made the over priced, salted corn on the cob at the bottom taste even sweeter (if you excuse the culinary oxymoron).
Anyway, in my book, any place that makes you recoil at its sheer audacious beauty is worth visiting.
If you’re ever in this part of China, put it on your list. You won’t regret it.
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