A Walk in the Clouds

A new year in China is upon us and that is time for new classes, new friends, new experiences, and new adventures! Originally, Adam and I had planned to travel out to the western province of Xinjiang on the border of Pakistan and India! It is the home of the Uyghur people and has a huge Middle Eastern influence which is why Adam dreams of getting out there. With our stay in America extended longer than we had planned, we realized that we wouldn't have time to get all the way across China before school started so Adam and I decided that our September trip would be a bit closer to home. After tossing around a few ideas, we decided on 黄山(pronounced Huangshan), the Yellow Mountain.

The trip out west would have taken us DAYS.

Yellow Mountain is a bit closer--just a three hour bus ride.

If you are someone who loves natural beauty over architectural beauty, this is definitely a place to visit in China. I've been to a few different mountain ranges now since visiting China--the Himalayas during Spring Festival which you can read about here and ZhangJiaJie in May which you can revisit right here--but I seriously never get tired of seeing mountains. When you look up at them you can't even begin to imagine how old they are... hundreds of millions of years old--they have seen more in their magnificent lives than we ever can. They stood strong at the birth of man, they were there when the Egyptians built the pyramids, they were there when the Vikings pillaged and plundered Europe, they were there when America was forming as a nation, they were there when the atom bomb was dropped, and they will continue to be there long after we are gone. We are just a tiny blip at we gaze up at their existence, a part of their story for just an instant... and if that is not incredible, I don't know what is!

Today, Yellow Mountain is one of China's biggest tourist attractions and a UNESCO World Heritage Site but it has a long and colorful history.

Formed over 100 million years ago, it was originally called Yishan 宜山(Yi Mountain) but in 747AD the name changed by imperial decree to the name that we call it today Huangshan 黄山. With mountains that are so incredible and prehistoric, of course there are legends that surround the mountain!

It is believed that the name Yellow Mountain is not because of the color of the mountains (though they are, indeed yellow) but rather, Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, who is believed to be the legendary ancestor of the ethnic Han Chinese. Tradition and legend claims that he ruled from 2697-2597BC before ascending into heaven at the Yellow Mountain, hence the range is named after him.

黄帝, Huang Di, the originator of the centralized state, a cosmic ruler, and ancestor of the ethnic Han Chinese.

The fun thing about myths and legends is that no one can ever disprove them and they always add a bit of spice and personality to a location and Yellow Mountain is certainly a place that has personality. It simply captures your imagination. If you ever see old Chinese paintings of mountains shrouded in mist, you're probably looking at Yellow Mountain--it is the epitome of what foreigners think China looks like.

Two paintings from the 1600s depicting Yellow Mountain

Knowing this was probably one of the most beautiful places in China to visit, and encouragement from Other Adam, we decided to make Yellow Mountain our first stop on our year long tour of China!

With this weekend being a holiday weekend (Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!), Adam and I went into town on Wednesday to buy our bus tickets to leave Thursday 9/4 early in the morning... 7:40AM early. The bus ride to Yellow Mountain is a little over three hours, taking you out of Zhejiang province and into Anhui province. The bus was completely filled with adventurers, both young and old, ready to conquer the mountain on their holiday weekend. 

We drove through the rolling hills of Zhejiang province and at about the three hour mark, I began to notice that the hills and mountains had disappeared and it was disturbingly flat to be near Yellow Mountain. Eventually, we arrived a little after 11AM in the town of Tangkou (which not so conveniently calls itself Huangshan as well) and--behold!--there were the mountains. We hopped on a smaller shuttle bus that took us high up into the mountain (because nobody wants to walk up the entire mountain!) and we were off on our adventure. 

Following the advice from Other Adam, we hopped into the cable car that took us up into the mountain range. Now, when Other Adam was describing Yellow Mountain while we were all visiting ZhangJiaJie together, he said that you are above the clouds when you are at Yellow Mountain. I thought he was exaggerating! I don't think I was above the clouds when I was hiking in Nepal, how could we be above the clouds in China? I am happy to say that I was wrong... Very wrong.

The cable car might have been my absolute favorite part of the entire trip. It was about a five minute ride up into the mountains and, indeed, we hit the clouds, the sun disappeared, and we could barely see anything! Occasionally, another cable car would appear in the mist and pass us by and sometimes we would spot a looming mountain through the window. It was incredible and we really were up above the clouds.

Notice how it is nice, clear, and GREEN in the first two photos and then nothing but white and a dull silhouette in the last one... Gorgeous!!

 We arrived at the White Goose Ridge Station (seriously, these names rock my world) and it was foggy and about 20 degrees colder. Donning our hoodies, we hoisted our backpacks back up onto our shoulders and began our trek through the Yellow Mountain--our goal was to see it all in less than 24 hours. 

Despite the fact that the bus was completely packed from Hangzhou to Tangkou and then from the base of the mountain up to the cable car, the minute we reached the clouds, everyone seemed to disappear (and not just because it was so cloudy). It was the first time that I visited a tourist attraction in China and I was not immediately bombarded by a sea of humanity. I loved it.

Adam and I walked for a bit, constantly stopping to gaze out at a mountain peeking out at us through the mist. Our first stop was the Stalagmite Peak and behind it was the Fairy Maiden Peak (I told you the names were awesome). We had a difficult time seeing everything clearly, but when a mountain appeared before you out of nowhere whenever the winds seemed to shift even the slightest, it truly was awe inspiring. 

Adam the Explorer, figuring out a game plan to conquer the Yellow Mountain.

Seriously, I feel like I just fell into "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!"

We walked and we walked and we walked and we walked. One thing you should know: when you think you are going to go hiking or visit anything "natural" in China, be prepared to climb nothing but stairs. It seems like the Chinese have never heard of just using natural paths or just slopes. There is nothing but stairs at Yellow Mountain--supposedly, over 60,000 stairs and, after that hike, I might actually believe it! Supposedly some of the stone steps carved into the side of the mountain are over 1,500 years old! We climbed higher and higher and each time we stopped to catch our breath, we were able to gaze out at some incredible sights (even if they were hiding in the clouds).

We had made it to the Pen Rack Peak, Beginning to Believe Peak, The Flower Grown Out of a Writing Brush Rock, the Monkey Watching the Sea, the Beihai Hotel, the Shilin Hotel, and the Xihai Hotel (yes there are at least five hotels on top of this mountain that you can actually stay at). We stopped at one of the rest stations that sell overpriced water, snacks, and canes (you know, instead of actual walking sticks) to figure out what we wanted to do. There was about 4 hours of daylight left and we were planning on spending the night here on the mountain. Aside from the overpriced hotels, you can also camp at Yellow Mountain but you have to do it at designated hotels for about 180元 (that's about $30). However, we have had a collection of expats visit Yellow Mountain before us--Olivia, Other Adam, and Hannah R--and each of them spent the night camping on the mountain and none of them paid; it was like a challenge we had to complete: find a way to spend the night on the mountain without having to pay for it.

CANES. Canes EVERYWHERE.

The map never seemed to match the signs...

We had spotted a few places a bit of the way off the trails to set up camp but me being the pathetic rule follower that I am had no desire to get caught so we continued to try and find the perfect place to hide away for the night. 

Enter the Purple Cloud Peak.

We hiked up the stairs for about 20 minutes before we came to this sign:

Yes sir! That is a CLOSED sign.

At first we were annoyed that we had hiked up all that way just to be told that the mountain was closed (how the heck do you close a mountain, anyway?) but then we noticed that the gate (and by "gate" I mean barbed wire, some chicken wire, and some plastic) was wide open. If people thought that the mountain was closed, that might mean that no one would find us up there (at least that's what Adam thought... me being the rule follower didn't want to go a step further)! Adam fearlessly led us onward through the open gate and up even more stairs. After another minute of climbing, I was ready to call it quits and suggest that we head back to one of the other locations we had spotted along the trail but Adam passed through another gate (this time a legit iron gate) and I hopelessly followed behind him, stopping to close the gate behind me to stop anyone from coming up. 

The top of the Purple Cloud Peak was, indeed, vacant and there was a perfect spot to set up our tent we had brought with us. I was still a bit nervous all night but after Adam discovered a small path that led to the very top of the peak that looked out over the cloud covered mountains, I decided to throw my inhibitions to the wind and simply enjoy the sunset and our celebratory dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches <-- one of my favorites!!

We just sat there on the rocks watching the clouds slowly blow by, sometimes obscuring our vision of the mountains and sometimes granting us a fleeting peek at the rocks and trees all around us. The sun slowly dipped behind the clouds before we could watching the sky change colors in the sunset. It got cold and as the world was doused in the blue hour, we changed into our warm clothes and burrowed in our sleeping bags in the tent to see if we really could make it through a night at Yellow Mountain without getting caught.

I've slept outside before... many times. I grew up camping, I used to do Sleepout for the Homeless in high school, I've been backpacking with my dad, and I even slept outside in a pagoda on Easter this year (you can read about that crazy experience here) but the night I spent on top of the Purple Cloud Peak at Yellow Mountain was the craziest night I have ever spent outside. 

The tent was pretty warm at the beginning of the night but eventually the cold night air got to me and I had to pull a blanket over me; there was nothing to stop the cold coming up from the rocks beneath us (you can imagine it wasn't very comfortable). At one point in the night, I woke up from the roar of the wind. I laid in my sleeping bag just listening to the wind soaring between the hundreds of mountain peaks of Yellow Mountain, almost sounding like thunder. It would be distant, hidden behind the sound of a nearby waterfall and grow louder and louder as it grew closer and just when I thought it couldn't get any louder, the wind would hit our tent and shake it back and forth. There were times that I was actually a little nervous--Olivia, Adam, and Hannah had all been down on the ground during their nocturnal stays... We were at the very top of a pretty impressively high peak... Not the best decision we ever made...

Despite the uncomfortable bed, the cold, and the wild wind, we made it through the night like champions and we crawled out from our tent to find that some of the clouds had let up to reveal to us our surroundings for the first time in over 12 hours of being on the Purple Cloud Peak.

Look! There are actually mountains there!

With the sun (kind of) shining down on us and at least a few more hours of hiking to get back to a cable car station, Adam and I ate our breakfast and took down our camp, congratulating each other on a successful illegal camping trip.

Yes... that is the edge of the mountain...

As we were walking down the path we had climbed up the day before, we heaved a sigh of relief when we saw that the gate that I had closed the day before were still shut but not locked--we were free to continue on! Ah, but things could never be that easy, now could they? Remember: there were two gates we passed through. As we made our way down to the second makeshift gate, I noticed that it was now closed and my stomach dropped. Uh-oh... I hadn't been able to close it the day before because the hinges were so rusted. As we got closer, we realized that not only was it closed but thick wire coils were knotted around to keep it locked shut. Definite uh-oh.

I noticed a small hole along the ground next to the gate and, using my boots, I pushed some of the barbed wire aside to try and make an opening big enough to crawl through. I made it through fairly easily, the hood on my sweatshirt catching for only a second and then it was Adam's turn. I'll leave the sight of Adam crawling through a tiny hole through barbed wire to your imagination... all I'll say is that he made it through unharmed. 

Yes, THAT is what we had to crawl through!

With that inconvenient obstacle out of our way, we were back to innocently hiking through Yellow Mountain, trying to appear as not guilty as possible! We planned out our course of action to try and find the cable car: travel down from the Purple Cloud Peak, to the Flying Over Rock, to the Brightness Top and the Steelify Mite Peak (I have no clue what they were trying to say there), up to the highest peak called the Lotus Peak, and then down and out at the Jade Screen Pavilion. It looked all downhill on the map and we figured, how hard could it be? The answer: HARD.

It was almost entirely uphill. The only other person who knows how much I cuss when I am sweating and forced to travel uphill is Hannah R from our time hiking in Nepal; I am not good at it and I hate it (it is two days later and my legs are still in pain). We stopped often to catch our breath, drink some water, and blame one another for forcing us to come to Yellow Mountain. We were also very mature and stopped to test the amount of echo the Yellow Mountain gives off. It turns out, it is quite an impressive echo. 

As we continued to hike down from our camp site and continued onward to the Brightness Top, the cloud/fog/mist became ridiculously INSANE. We could not see anything beyond the trail--no trees, mountains, monkeys, or birds. Even along the trail the mist was so thick that other hikers would just pop out of nowhere just a few feet head of you. The pines were dark and looming, the mist cold as it wrapped around you, always moving slowly. 

You always hear the expression, "The Mists of Time," and I seriously feel like I was trapped inside the mists of time. You lose track of time, the day could have been the morning or the afternoon. There was really no sense of time or space, just your own personal journey. The mists would keep the mountains hidden until just the exact moment when the clouds would lift the veil for just a moment, just for you to gaze upon the magnitude of the Earth, and then just as your eyes are beginning to adjust and take in the sight, the mist takes the mountain back as if it was all theirs to keep. 

I know I was in the middle of China (believe me, every time I saw someone on their cellphone, talking or I heard the oh so annoying and ear piercing chatter of a tour guide reminded me of that constantly) but occasionally, we would be walking along a narrow path, nothing but pine trees around us and the clouds blinding us and I couldn't stop myself from feeling like I had taken a wrong turn back at the Immortal Overturns the Desk Peak and I had landed in Transylvania and I had to watch out for strigoi, vampires, and werewolves. 

Seriously! Spooky!!

 We got painfully lost a few times, thinking that we were close to the cable cars (seriously, China needs to learn how to put signs at forks in the path) and always climbing up stairs (so many stairs!!). We finally arrived at the Brightness Top where Adam and I decided to get medals to boast our accomplishment (we had gotten similar ones at ZhangJiaJie so it seemed appropriate).

Ignore the dog on the left... that is what sleeping on a mountain and not showering for three days will do to you...

Praying that we were close to the exit (I felt like that kid in The Pagemaster), we continued on once more, up and down the stairs. We kept passing hikers that still looked fresh and happy--they must have just arrived meaning we're close to the cable car... Right? Wrong!

We continued to wander, reached way too many signless forks in the path and had to guess which way to go off of the map that was almost 10 years old and far too artsy to actually be functional. Since we were so tired, we decided that we didn't have to go to the highest peak... we had nothing to prove... Until the path we were on brought us to the Ladder in the Clouds which lead directly up 1864.5 meters (luckily we only had to climb about 20 meters) to the highest peak. We had no choice but to bite our tongue from screaming, take a deep breath, and dig deep, crawling our way to the top of the Lotus Peak, the highest part of the Yellow Mountain.

As we reached a rest area about 10 meters away from the top, we were greeted by a chorus of excited, "Oh laowai!" (AKA: foreigners). We sat to catch our breath for a minute before our pride got the better of us--we had made it this far, we were going to reach the summit of this peak if it killed us, dammit! Leaving behind the tour group at the little snack stand, Adam and I marched up the final staircase leading to the top of the Lotus Peak... Only to be slapped in the face with yet another CLOSED sign.

Curses! The government has blocked me again!!

In the end, we pushed ourselves as far as we could. Even though we technically didn't make it to the summit of the highest peak at Yellow Mountain, we still pushed ourselves pretty hard. We survived the hoards of Chinese tour groups, survived a night on top of the Purple Cloud Peak, and eventually found our way out of the park... without ever wanting to push each other off a cliff!!

The Great China Tour 2014 Part 1: SUCCESS

First trip as an engaged couple ♥

We ended up unofficially banding with a group of four guys who seemed just as lost as we were and rejoiced just as much as we did when we spotted the sign for the cable car which was still ridiculously hard to find because, again, no sign at a fork in the road! Adam and I grabbed a celebratory Fanta (that was all I was craving during the entire hike) and we rode the cable car down the mountain, leaving the misty clouds high above us and returned to the sunlight below.

Once we arrived back at the tourist center in Tangkou, Adam and I sat in cushioned seats, relaxed, breathed deeply, ordered a couple of Huangshan beers, and ate the most delicious dumplings I have ever had in my life (all I had to do was climb a mountain to earn them)!

We earned our lunch!!

I've only been in China for a week now and I've already managed to travel somewhere new. I always love going on adventures and visiting new places and coming into contact with new people--even if it's just the girl who helped us buy our bus tickets back to Hangzhou or the kids who asked to take a photo with us as soon as we got off the cable car. I saw things that I have never seen before--clouds wrapping around mountains, trees, and even me. I slept on the edge of a cliff, hundreds of feet off the ground, with the wind whipping around me. I became a part of Yellow Mountain's story--a story that is millions of years old--even if my part of the story was only an instant.

I live for moments of feeling so small and insignificant and yet so infinite and unstoppable, too. I hope you have moments like that in life as well.

It was a good return to China and here's to many more adventures in the Middle Kingdom. 

中秋节快乐!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Don't forget to eat a mooncake!

 

 Until Next Time, 

Amanda