Up and Down Yellow Mountain (China)
This is a continuation of visiting Yellow Mountain (Huang Shan) in China in May, 1989.
Our second day on Yellow Mountain started before dawn with the thrill of a crowd of people gathered to see the sunrise. Russell ran around happily taking lots of photos. The day was wonderfully clear and Yellow Mountain showed all her beauty.
We hiked a lot. Even though we had come most of the way by cable car, there was still more “up” to go. I told Richard to stop counting aloud as he reached 1000 stairs! It was good that there were three boys with me because I needed them to push and pull me up those stairs. Alongside one precipitous edge of a particular cliff, there was a chain with hundreds of locks on it. These were locks that lovers bought and locked to eternalize their connection on a mountaintop as close to heaven as they were likely to get while still alive. So like the romantic Chinese!
And the vagaries of the mists created beautiful illusions, such as making Russell look like he was standing in mid-air because the stone bridge was obscured.
On the way down what must have been thousands of steps to the bottom of the mountain, each boy took turns holding my hand to protect me from falling off. I was glad for the “sensible” shoes I had on for hiking and could only be amazed at the variety of what I would call very dangerous footwear that I saw on the women and girls.
From pre-sunrise to sunset, it was a very full day of magnificent scenery, happy camaraderie, and tired feet.
Tags: Huang Shan; Yellow Mountain in China;, Travel
