Not too long ago, I was fortunate enough to visit Huangshan in China’s Anhui Province. It was my second trip to Huangshan, and it was every bit as spectacular as the first. Also known as the Yellow Mountain, it’s hands down the coolest place I’ve ever been. If you’ve ever seen a traditional Chinese painting with granite peaks obscured by mist, or twisted pine trees clinging to rock, you’ve seen Mount Huangshan. The warm, moist air from

Huangshan at Sunrise - Photo by Keyen Farrell

the Yangtze River collides with the cold mountain air to create a fog that permeates literally everything. Most of the time you can’t see more than 10 feet in front of your face – then all of a sudden a breeze will come and blow the clouds away to reveal some of most incredible vistas imaginable. A few seconds later, the fog will swallow the mountains as the process starts anew.

To reach the mountain, we traveled by car though several death-defying passes in southern Anhui. When you reach the foot of the mountain you’re faced with thousands of steps painstakingly carved into the granite face. According to Wikipedia, some 60,000 steps have been created over the centuries. The dependence on manual labor in China is striking, and nowhere is it more apparent than Mount Huanghshan. A steady flow of porters lug all the staples of modern life: gasoline, food, and of course baijou (distinguishing between baijou and gasoline is not a trivial task). Some 4 hours later, we reached our hotel. It was already nightfall so we headed to the bar for a few drinks at the soviet-era discotheque. Judging from how my breath fell from the air, it could not have been more than 45 degrees inside. Everywhere in China I was struck by the overwhelming hospitality, and in Huangshan our gracious hosts even went though the trouble of turning on the disco ball!

The next morning we woke before sunrise to make the summit. When we reached it, a large group had already assembled to view what is the life’s goal of many Chinese: a sunrise on the sea of clouds. Looking out into the crisp air, you see an white unbroken carpet that stretches for what must be a hundred miles. As the sun begins to rise, the clouds turn a reddish-gold before finally revealing the golden orb. It was a very memorable moment. The rest of the trip was great, but leaving the mountain you can’t escape the feeling that you’ve intruded on an ecologically sensitive place. There are battalions of foreigners on the mountain, and on the final day I came across an alpine stream flowing iridescent with waste oil. Hopefully this place will be protected, and it looks like good steps are being taken; It has been declared a UNESCO Natural Heritage site.