Fellow Virtual Travelers,
Well, we attacked Hua Mountain and Hua conquered us! Again. This was our third visit to this monumental mountain range that translated is 'Flower Mountain'. The name is due to the five petaled peaks that make up the mountain: North Peak, South Peak, East Peak, West Peak and Central Peak. The entire mountain is white granite with sheer thousand foot cliffs, outcroppings and cornices. It is easy to slip and fall in good weather and it's tragic that numbers of people meet their accidental deaths on this mountain every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hua
But I get ahead of myself…. After checking into the hotel in the city at the base of Hua and getting ready for bed Saturday night, we could not get the room to warm up! So Dennis went to get the hotel floor attendant (the rural areas have this service on each floor of the hotels to provide assistance, hot boiled water, etc.) After she made numerous phone calls from our room to the front desk, we were connected with our local guide Jim, who explained that the hotel controls the room temperature and it cannot be changed. If you get cold, there is an extra quilt in the closet. Okay then! T'was time to get out the long johns! Glad we brought them!
Then, to prepare for re-packing our backpacks to lighten the load to hike up the thousands of steps of Huashan, we set the alarm extra early. But… the alarm did not go off (or we slept through it) and had to miss breakfast in hotel. So we suffered by eating our instant oatmeal in the room while we prepared for the mountain assault!
The Assault on Hua: We made the trek from north peak all the way to east peak before the rain came. We managed to get some video footage of the struggle to climb the steep and narrow dragon ridge knife edge along the way. Defeated by Hua weather, we walked down the wet & slippery granite steps and made it back to north peak in about an hour. BUT THEN, we waited in line to catch the cable car the rest of the way down the mountain with thousands of pushing and shoving Chinese for 2 more hours, while standing in the rain. As the rain increased, the temperature decreased. Once, this environment caused some locals to get into a fist fight in the line behind us. A hot shower in the Xian hotel felt very good and helped reduce the chills!
So while we made much progress hiking, in spite of the crowds and weather, we did not accomplish one of our goals. The Huashan Plank walk:
http://www.wherecoolthingshappen.com/huashan-crazy-plank-walk/
We've all decided that we'll have to come back someday for another attempt...
Today, we're finishing some touring in Xi'an and then off to the most remote sacred mountain on this visit: Wudangshan!
Again, thank you to everyone who is emailing us! It helps us feel very connected to home while in a very foreign environment!
Blessings,
Dennis & Anita