The Real Stair Master

If you google ‘scariest hikes’ there are two places that repeated come up; El Caminito del Rey and Mount Hua Shan (or huashan). And if you are going to do one, you might as well do them both. So I ventured south from Beijing to Xi’An. There I met back up with a couple of Dutch guys I had met in Beijing (Patrick and Martin, who camped on the Great Wall with me) as well as an Aussie (Joel). We also picked up a new friend in the hostel (Andrew, from England). The five of us set out to hike up Mt Huashan, spend the night, do the circuit of all 5 of its peaks, traverse the planks and carved foot hold of its most famous ‘scary’ cliffside, then hike back down. There is a cable car that most tourists take up to the first peak, but that did not seem like much fun. The notorious ‘Soldiers Path’ sounded like more of a challenge. Now we had read that there were a lot of steps on this path, and that it was difficult. What we encountered was much more than I expected. There were steps the entire way up and down the mountain. We literally climbed several thousand steps over the two day period. Some of them were actually vertical ladders carved into a rock face. Obviously these soldiers did not believe in going around anything. They just created a path straight up the mountain.
The physical effort to do this climb was more than any one day of climbing on Mt Kilimanjaro. It is two days later, and my legs are still aching with every step. To add to the enjoyment, when we got to the ‘scary’ part the second day, it had to be done in the middle of an all day rain storm. So the rock and planks were even more dangerous and my hands were cold slippery. Although, I may have to give the upper hand to El Caminito for getting my heart pumping.
But it was well worth the effort. The natural scenery was magnificent. And there were old temples scattered throughout the hilltops. The first day was pretty clear so you could see across the mountain range. While the second day was completely cloudy and raining, it still provided for some great views of misty silhouettes and peaks breaking though the clouds. I can see why Mt. Hua Shan is one of China’s sacred mountains.