itura_ad_Asiam: Overnighting on Huashan

31 August

4pm saw me ambling about on Central Peak. Central Peak sits below East, South, and West Peak, but over North Peak; however, because of the placement of trees one cannot see North Peak from Central Peak. I shared some pictures last time of Central Peak, and there was nothing of particular note to see on this peak, but I played with my camera a bit here. I'll leave those for a bit later, and move on with the tale a bit.

My room at East Peak

Rather than retrace my steps I carried on the path that had brought me to Central Peak, and wound up making my way back up to East Peak. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler, long I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth;..." is what went through my mind when I reached the fork in the road.

One road a newly constructed three landing staircase while the other is rather aptly named "Staircase to Heaven." Naturally, I scaled the Heavenly Ladder. Absolutely and by far the most fool thing thing I decided to do that day thus far. I was already exhausted, aching, and I had not harness for this particular adventure.

"Staircase to Heaven"

My brilliant self compounded the treacherousness by stopping half way up the ladder when I found a ledge wide enough to finally plant my feet to take some photos. After all, how would you believe I took the road less traveled if there was no photographic proof, and since there was no one on the ladder to pass the camera too ... well, I just had to do it myself.

View looking down

As you can imagine I was pretty wiped out after this, and decided to go back to the hotel and find some hot food. My chair in the restaurant was positioned to the west, and when the sunset was underway, I grabbed the rest of my food to go. There was a fairly good, unobstructed position to watch the sunset that I had seen earlier, and it was definitely more desirable than hiking back up to West Peak over Blue Dragon Ridge in waning light followed by the trek back to East Peak with no light.

I have teased you with some different views of the sunset from 24 August, 2013, and below is the very last glimpse of the sun before it sank beneath the cloud bank.

Final glimpse of sunset

Not the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen because there was significant cloud cover. But after a full day getting to the mountain and then scampering all over it, there is a great feeling of completion to be had in watching the day end.

My bed that night was in a ten person dorm, and I quite literally slept on sheets of plywood with a thin pad. Thankfully, there was a nice thick, fluffy comforter. Being the bite sized human that I am I was able to completely cocoon myself in that warmth, and after my all day adventure that was all I needed to drift off. It was a short sleep, and I was awoken by my dorm-mates around 4:00am. Guess I didn't need to set that 4:45am alarm or the 5:00am back up alarm either. Even puttering around, gathering up my things, I was up at East Peak by 5:00am - so if you do decide to check out the online album for this trip there will be several shots of the moon as I am amusing myself, waiting for the sunrise to start.

Finally, at 5:30am we saw the first glimmer on the horizon, but it was a slow going process. By 5:45am there was a significant crowd on the top of East Peak. They were pressing in behind me as if we could get closer to the horizon. Really, there is a 2,000 + meter drop in front of me people and I am only 5'2ft tall, there are worse people to have in the front row.