Hua Shan (华山)
August 9, 2005
2160m
Shanxi, China
This was my first summit after owning a digital camera. Mom and I did it as part of our summer trip after my graduation from elementary school. Hua Shan is famous of its exposed terrain. Well, I’m talking about “exposed” from tourists’ point of view. There’s no real exposure since the routes (staircases) are well protected by chains and fences. Like other mountains in China, this one sees thousands of tourists each day during prime season. You have the option to take a gondola to the upper mountains, but we opted for hiking up. It was a long way to get up there though. Hua Shan has 5 summits. We only went up the most impressive, west summit, and the highest, south summit. On the way down we refused to take gondola again and ended up descending in dark for hours. I was freaked out in darkness but we managed to get out with no mishap, and took the last train to Xi’an and continued our journey. Our round trip time was more than 14 hours and I was definitely beat.
Me at the entrance gate
The west summit in the background.
This is the theme of this mountain.
The same part as above, but higher up
This bit is the most vertical
And then, “exposed” ridge like this
Looking down at this ridge’s start. As you can see, there’s no real exposure
Looking down one side from the ridge
Another impressive peak. (It’s not part of Hua Shan though)
Me with the west peak behind. It’s getting closer
More steep staircases like this
And, this.
Mom near the summit of west peak. It was a grey-out up there
Coming down from west peak, view opened up briefly
Mom with the south peak’s vertical cliffs behind
Looking back towards west peak from partway up the south peak
Me on the summit of south peak (the highest among 5 summits)
Mom on the summit
Coming down. Me with the north summit behind
Steep staircases, the theme
It gets near vertical lower down
Steven's Peak-bagging Journey 