Huangshan mountain, Anhui

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The rain stopped and the sky cleared, so we got up early to catch a sunrise.  A good spot for sunrise watching was only a few minutes from our hotel.  The sunrise was amazing, and the Sun let us wait for it to come up – as if it is some star – Katharina’s joke.

We used the most beautiful morning with clear blue sky and perfect visibility to hike to a Northern See summit.  After the breakfast, we packed our stuff and got ready for a hike down from the mountain.

For our way down, we selected the Western steps.  This is a longer, 15 km long hike with beautiful and dramatic views.  There are also Eastern steps, which are only half that long, but less spectacular. We planned to make the hike down in about five hours.  Even while there are more steps down then steps up, this hike is quite strenuous at times. If you can not walk any longer, you can pay porters to carry you.  At the end of the hike, we were very tired.

We went back to Tangkou, and then to Huangshan City to catch our high-speed train to Hefei and then to Suzhou, where we will spend the next two nights.