Even though we have been in Shanghai for a while, a trip to the infamous Huangshan (yellow mountain) had maricously never occurred. The mountain range, described by one blogger to “have influenced most paintings in Chinese restaurants” This labor holiday, we had a look for ourselves and scratched it of our todo list.

First about the trip: We had our entire provision, including instant noodles, bread and chocolate in our backpacks and left room for one celebration meal at return.

The plan was as follows: leave in the early morning by bus in Shanghai and aim to be at the our sleeping place (close to the summit) before the dark. The next day we would get up early to hike to the (200m?) to the top and see the sunrise, and then hike one of the designated paths back to civilization.

The trip was quite spontaneous so we didn’t plan too far ahead. We made it a sport to keep costs at a minimum, while still enjoying the outdoors. We travelled the 500km by bus and decided to sleep in a tent instead of a hotel. Smell the nature…

Going there, In the back of the bus two Huang Shan residents quickly turned out to be quite friendly. One turned out to be an excellent tour guide for his home town. He spent more then an hour filling us in on every detail about our upcoming journey.

Friendly people explaining us where to go next

Due to traffic, we arrived barely on time and had to keep pace up, we arrived at the hotel just before sunset. The tent was already setup for us, so there was no problem. We had a meal and looked around before we slept.

[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”480” caption=”At the camping site. Simple dinner, followed by beer and potato chips %}

The next morning we got up at 4am. Frankly, we were amiming for 4:30 but our neighbors woke up with a lot of noise, but it was perfect actually, we climbed (with flashlights) to the top of the mountain and could settle a nice place as we were one of the first spectators.

[caption id=”attachment_4098” align=”aligncenter” width=”600” caption=”Sunrise”][/caption]

After sunrise, we looked around for a bit. It’s tranquility was amazing. Still a few hazy clouds, just hanging on the base of the mountains, creating a bit of a mystical landscape.

[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”643” caption=”After sunrise, 5:40 am in the morning.”][/caption]

[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”643” caption=”Incredible peaks, beautiful sights”][/caption]

The highlight for me was the Lotus peak. Although it got a bit more cloudy and it was a very steep stair climb, we were lucky with the weather and that it wasn’t crowded with people. The view was magnificent. We really are thinking about buying a more serious camera soon.

[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”643” caption=”On top of lotus peak, 1,864m”][/caption]

During the way down, the sun came out from time to time. Steep, steep stairs down. Careful now!

Afterwards we enjoyed a meal and a footmassage down in the village, before taking the bus back to Shanghai.

If anyone reading this is planning to go, it seemed that our decision to stay the night and see the sunrise saved the day, would highly recommend it. We didn’t have to wait anywhere we came. When we came down the summit it quickly became busy and when we walked by the queue, waiting times were reaching 2.5 hours to go up by cable cart.