Farewell to the Majestic Huangshan: China’s Ethereal Ink Painting

This is the second part in my series on hiking China’s Yellow Mountains. Start from the beginning here.

This is the last time I’ll be talking about the Yellow Mountains. For now at least… This mountain range in the Anhui province of China is the natural embodiment of Chinese landscape ink paintings. The shrouds of mist that delicately waft around jutting rocks, like silk robes draping the curvatures of a royal concubine, evoke the traditional scenes depicted by great Chinese artists such as Qi Baishi (齐白石 ) or Fan Kuan (范寬 ).

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It was like I stepped into a Chinese ink painting. Everywhere I looked, I saw accents of amber yellow straw, jade green trees and red berries hanging like diamonds in the foreground. Even though the pearl sky and raging wind blowing fog across the canyons and daunting mountain walls made for lackluster photo ops, it was absolutely magical in real life. The snaking waves of mist coiling around the rocks left me in an awe, and the concealed trail in front of me held an aura of mystery. But enough with my attempts to wax poetic. This post will be more visually focused to tell the story of my trek through the Yellow Mountains.

The only detraction from it all were the tourists. The phenomenon that is Chinese tour groups was an ever-present entity throughout the Yellow Mountains. Clad in matching neon-colored hats, dozens of eager tourists from the more provincial parts of China boisterously marched, leaving a trail of snack wrappers, chicken feet and neon yellow ponchos in their wake. You will never see a Chinese tour group wearing green hats though because this is a famous symbol in China for being cuckolded in a relationship (戴绿帽子).

Every couple hundred feet or so, I would encounter groups of hikers. They would almost always laugh and point, proclaiming, “There’s a foreigner! He probably doesn’t speak our language”. I would answer, “Indeed I do”. This would usually prompt an outburst of amazement, and we’d chat for a bit.

While it definitely interfered with my nature walk, everyone showed such genuine friendliness without a hint of malice that I didn’t mind being an oddity. Frequently, they would ask me to pose with them for a photo. In all, I probably appeared in over a dozen hikers’ Huangshan pictures, which makes me chuckle. I can easily imagine those sweet, salt of the earth people showing their family members my picture as part of the trip highlights.

Only once did I encounter a Westerner. He frantically ran up to me and asked, “How do I get out of here? I’ve been walking for hours and all the signs are in Chinese!” When I pointed him in the right direction, he put his hands together and exhaled, “thank God!” before shuffling off. Towards the end of the day, I made my way to the much panned White Goose Inn, the cheapest hotel on the mountain. It was a surprisingly nice experience. I was in a room with 14 old men from Chongqing, who were all in good spirits and welcomed me into their merry band. The overpriced buffet was edible, which is really an achievement given that all supplies have to be walked up by the hardest working men on the mountain.

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At 4 AM, the old men in my room were up and chatting and smoking. It was almost time for the sunrise. The first day was foggy; a subtler beauty. The burgeoning sun, however, illuminated the surrounding valleys and crevasses brilliantly. Fighting for a spot to see against the gathered crowds, I battled the freezing weather to view the sunrise. Huangshan only has around 150 sunny days a year, so I got lucky.

At around 6 AM, I hiked down the West Sea Great Canyon (西海峡谷) – about a four hour hike. Signs warned of mischievous monkeys, but sadly I didn’t encounter any. The graciously warm sun, thawing my frozen fingers, struck the cliff walls beautifully. My budget cell phone camera couldn’t properly capture the picturesque canyon, now unveiled from yesterday’s fog cover.

Opting to take the quicker way out of the canyon, I rode the cable car back up as I had a train to catch that evening. Finally, I hiked down the east side of Huangshan and said goodbye to the expansive mountain range that consumed my world for the those four memorable days.