It is now July 6. The
weather has been hot, 90-100 F, though not humid. We have gotten out to the mountains on two of
the last three weekends. We went to Hua Shan (Flower mountain) on June
19-20. On July 3-4 we went to Tai Bai Shan (Extremely White Mountain).
Hua Shan
Hua Shan is the highest of China’s
five sacred mountains. It is 120
kilometers east of Xian. It has five
peaks that resemble the petals of a flower.
The highest peak is 2180 meters (7085 feet).
We had had discussions about going to Hua
Shan with some graduate students from Computer Science. That didn’t work out due to changes in
schedules on both sides. Also, they were
planning to do the climb at night to be able to reach the peak at sunrise. That did not appeal to us. We wanted to spend a night on the
mountain. Fran’s department arranged a
trip for us, making reservations at the simple hotel on the North
Peak. They sent two graduate students to accompany
us, though they had not been to Hua Shan before. We met them at 8:00
on Saturday morning and took a taxi to the train station. There we asked around and located a
mini-bus. The bus made a couple of
stops. One was to see a presentation
about the traditional medicines grown on the mountain and a chance to buy some
of them. It probably would have been
interesting if we understood Chinese.
Our guides gave us the general outline about what was said. The other stop was a quick lunch stop.
There are two approaches to Hua
Shan. [Chinese proverb: “There is one
road and only one road to Hua Shan,” meaning that
sometimes the hard way is the only way.] The west entrance involves 10
kilometers of walking on a road before you start climbing. We went with the east entrance, where the bus
brings you to the base of a cable car that goes up to the 1500 meter North
Peak. Our plan was to walk up to the North
Peak, then climb to the four other
peaks the next day and take the cable car down.
We started the climb in the early afternoon. The path
consists of stone steps with rough chain link handrails in the narrowest areas
(we wore our bicycling gloves for hand protection). Physically, it is more like climbing the
steps of a skyscraper than trails at home.
However, the temperature was about 95 degrees and there was not much
shade. We brought lots of water,
including some bottles that we froze and some Gatorade that we got at the fancy
department store in downtown Xian. There
are plenty of refreshment stands along the way where you can buy bottled water,
the Chinese equivalent of Gatorade, and other drinks or snacks at a premium
price.
We reached the North
Peak before 4:00 PM and rested at the hotel. Our room was basic, but
comfortable and clean enough.
Because water is scarce on the mountain, there were neither showers nor sinks
available for washing. In that sense the
experience felt like camping, but we were sleeping in a big tent!
After dinner at the hotel restaurant, we spent some time
talking with our guides. We were a bit
surprised to find that they both think of Japan
negatively, but like the U.S. It seems that Japan’s
WWII behavior in China
has not been forgotten, and is emphasized in school.
We saw a beautiful sunset and watched the sky become
resplendent with thousands of stars, including the Milky Way galaxy. This was the clearest sky that we have seen
in China. The fresh air at Hua
Shan is a treat!
Our guides had both been planning to get up at 4:00 AM to watch the sunrise. Fran and I made sleep a priority. We did happen to wake up a bit before sunrise
(our room faced east) and went outside to watch the sky become rosy. Ironically, our guides missed the sunrise
because they had stayed up late watching the European soccer championships on
the television in their room.
The plan for the day was to climb the other four peaks, but
we reserved the right to shorten the route.
The first part was a steep climb to Middle
Peak. After the low North
Peak, all the others are at roughly
2000 meters. There were crowds on the
way to Middle Peak
– mostly Chinese hikers but we did see a few other wai
guo (foreigners) as well.
We visited two Taoist temples en route to Middle
Peak. Each one had an altar with incense and
offerings of fruit. The friendly monks
invited us to say a prayer or to send blessings to loved ones. Fran accepted their invitation. At the first temple, she lit incense sticks
and knelt on a cushion in front of the altar saying a silent prayer for our
safe journey to the various summits of Hua Shan (the
prayer was answered). At the second
temple, she knelt on a cushion in front of the altar and sent silent blessings
to several friends who are experiencing challenging situations in their lives
at present. After each blessing, she leaned forward and the
monk struck a drum.
After Middle Peak,
the crowds got much thinner. The next
was East Peak,
which had a steep ladder climbing rock.
Fran was dubious about this ascent, but realized that the ladder wasn’t
so bad and went for it. That was a good
decision because we were then able to do a loop and the trails got almost empty
at this point. After skirting the top of
a cliff with a steep dropoff on both sides, we had a
pleasant walk to South Peak
and West Peak. There was even a small amount of dirt
trail! The summit of South
Peak was the highest point on Hua Shan, so of course we asked another hiker to take a
photo of our guides and us. The views
from the tops of each peak were beautiful.
Hua Shan and the surrounding mountains are
very rugged and remind us somewhat of hiking in the southwestern United
States or the Sierras.
We took a route that eventually brought us to the main line
returning down from Middle to North Peak. We were happy to have ascended each of the
five peaks (petals) of Flower Mountain.
By cable car (the longest in Asia),
it was just 7 minutes down to the park entrance. We caught a shuttle bus into town, then transferred to a bus for Xian.
Our guides told us that we had walked up and down a total of
4000 stairs! We were glad that we did
not have this information when we started.
For three days after returning home, our sore leg muscles instructed us
to take the elevator to our fifth floor apartment rather than climbing the
stairs.
Tai Bai Shan
We had considered inviting our guides from Hua Shan to join us, but decided that we could get by on
our own. The guides had been kind and
helpful, but took their responsibility for our safety a bit too zealously and
were particularly over-protective of Fran.
The constant reminders of “be careful”, “don’t go too fast”, “it
is dangerous” got old! Fran told them
that she was an experienced hiker on much more difficult trails, but they were
not convinced. Hence, our decision to
hike at Tai Bai Shan without guides was a good
one.
On the morning of July 3, we took a taxi to the Xian train
station and looked for buses going to Tai Bai Shan or
Bao Ji (the town beyond the
park). Tai Bai
Shan is a similar distance from Xian as Hua Shan, but
in the opposite direction (west rather than east). We wound up just missing the Bao Ji bus. Someone helped us out by leading us back to
the area where we had previously found that there were no buses for Tai Bai Shan. Then he
took us back to the Bao Ji
area where we waited a bit. After a
while, he led us a block or two to the bus station and got us on a local bus
for Bao Ji. It turned out to be a very local bus and took
all back roads.
They eventually let us off in a village, where we took a
taxi a short distance to the village at the entrance to Tai
Bai Shan
National Park. There we got on a minibus and ate a picnic
lunch while waiting for the bus to start its journey. When we finally entered the park, it was
lovely. The hot lowland weather gave way
to a shaded forested canyon with a real mountain stream running though it. The bus made a few stops, one at a waterfall
and another at a pool and cave temple.
At the park entrance, we were surprised that we needed to show our
passports. We have rarely received this
request since arriving in China
over two months ago.
The scenery from the bus was beautiful, and it took between
90 minutes and two hours for the bus trip up the mountain. We arrived at the top at about 5:00 PM and checked into the hotel which was
similar in style to the hotel at Hua Shan. We are at 2800 meters and considered taking
the cable car to 3200 meters this evening, but found out that there is another
4 hours of walking after getting off the cable car. We did an evening walk along a paved trail in
the direction away from the cable car and enjoyed beautiful views of the tree-covered
Qinling Mountains.
Tyler got up
about sunrise the next day and went outside for a look. Our room has a good view and is facing
approximately east, but there is a mountain ridge that blocks the sunrise.
We had breakfast at the small hotel restaurant, then got an early start on the cable car. Our July 4 hike was really great! It felt like being back in the Cascade
Mountains at home. Not
crowded, lots of green forest, views of ridge after ridge. And refreshingly cool, with clean air. Of course, the trail is board-walk or
concrete, and we did pass a few Taoist shrines.
We got to the 3500 meter (11,375 feet) level sooner than
expected and had just a short walk to the summit. Unfortunately, the last stretch is prohibited
to foreigners. Apparently there is some
kind of military facility on the top.
We wound up getting back to the day’s starting point sooner
than expected. We decided to try to get
on to Famen Si, which is
about the same distance from Xian, but on the north side of the river. We took a minibus down the mountain; the bus
went so fast through the hairpin turns that it felt like a whip ride at an
amusement park. Fran’s face was a fine
shade of green when we arrived at the village, so she spent some time
recovering while Tyler researched
travel options to Famen Si. There were no buses and a taxi would cost 70
to 100 yuan. A
friendly woman in the village told us we could take a bus part of the way for
20 yuan. The
bus left us off at a highway junction where they said it should be easy to get
a taxi on to Famen Si for
another 20 yuan.
Of course taxis do not cruise highways looking for stranded people to
pick up. We stood beside the road in the
hot sun for a while, then walked a bit to a toll
booth, figuring that that could be a good place to hitch a ride. No luck, but Fran went to the building
serving the people working at the toll booth.
We wound up getting their driver to take us to Famen
Si for 50 yuan.
So what is this place we were trying so hard to reach? The Famen Temple
has a Buddhist relic: Buddha’s finger bone, a gift from King Asoka of India. The Tang emperors (800 AD or so) organized
great processions where the relic would be brought to the capital. They made many gifts to the temple of objects
in gold, silver and silk. All this
survived the Cultural Revolution since the pagoda had collapsed and the relic
was forgotten. It was rediscovered in 1980 and the pagoda and temple complex
were rebuilt.
We toured the temple, going down into the vault where the
relic had been kept and where today’s monks keep a close watch on it. A friendly guide showed us around the temple,
encouraging us to pray at the Buddhas and explained
the different statues. Unfortunately,
this was all in Chinese and we could only understand an occasional word.
We managed to lose our guide at the entrance to the
museum. It has the gold and silver
nested caskets that held each of the three finger bones. It also has the precious gifts that the
emperors presented to the temple.
Overall, Famen Si
was an interesting place to visit.
We found a tourist bus with some empty seats heading back to
Xian and had a fast and comfortable evening return trip.
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