I am back from Huangshan – and I was lucky, perfect weather throughout, superb views etc. … 😉

Based on the China Lonely Planet there are three ways to get up Huangshan:

• the short, hard way following the eastern steps
• the long, harder way following the western steps
• the easy way using one of the three cable cars up the mountain

On top of that there are the northern steps, which I would rate somewhere between the eastern and western steps…

In any case – I found myself hiking (or should I say climbing) up the western steps – i.e. starting at an elevation of around 830 meters, up to Lotus peak at 1864 meters with plenty of ups and downs on the way – all steps …

I arrived at my hotel on the mountain mid-afternoon; after a short break, I went out again for a walk down to Fairy Walking Bridge to get a first impression of the Xihai (West Sea) Grand Canyon – and also to catch the sunset on the way back.

My second day saw me continuing around the canyon – this time in the other direction, i.e. North bound, there I got side-tracked and made it up Purple Cloud Peak … to then turn down into the canyon …

All hard workout … at one stage I counted more than 500 steps in less than 300 meters … and those had to be done on the way down … and on the way up – but totally worth it. 😉

I once more made it to the hotel (a different one … at the starting point for my hike on the day after) mid-afternoon – and wen t once more off to explore the new surroundings, climbing Beginning to believe Peak and then making a circle back to the hotel.

My third day on the mountain saw me walking down – following the northern steps. While the walk was not as spectacular as any of the previous ones – the pure absence of other tourists (not even thinking of those megaphone tour guiding monsters) made it a very enjoyable (yet knee-torturing) walk. For obvious reasons I decided to cable-car back to the top 😉

After some more hiking on top (and again into the Xihai Grand Canyon), I climbed Purple Cloud Peak once more – to see the sun set over the West Sea (of clouds).

I started early the next morning (actually I had early starts every morning while up on the mountain) – to see the sunrise from Beginning to believe Peak …

After sunrise and breakfast, I made my way down again – this time using the hard way, means following the eastern steps …

Making it back to the foot of Huangshan around midday left me with enough time to make a side-trip to Hongcun, one of the Western Villages, a Unesco World Heritage site featuring Huizhou style architecture.

Given the traditional and picturesque setup, the village is literally flooded by art students, practicing all sorts of styles using the buildings or archways  as subjects.

To finish the day – and before leaving Anhui province on a flight to Shanghai, I had another chance to get into Tunxi’s (aka. Huangshan City, about one hour drive from Huangshan) old street.

Now I am Shanghai … let’s see if/ when I manage an update on that 😉