After a three hour trip through some fairly scenic country over a heap of rivers and through a heap more tunnels, (this is why the people in Sichuan couldn't get in or out - same road system) I ended up in Tuxin then got the shuttle up to Tangkou. A local guy by the name of Mr Hu has a knack of finding travellers and offering to help out with meals, accomodation and tickets. And does a good job of it too. I can recommend him.
The plan was to get a ride to the temple near the base and walk up the east steps, look around and come back down the west steps next day. Yeah right.
Right from the start I had an idea this might be a bit too much for the time I had when I'm meeting people coming down off the moutain pulled up resting. And they were coming down! The track is well marked and mostly concrete steps, but if it's not going up it's going back down, which only means you've got to go back up again. I did most of the side tracks and had a good look around, ate all the fruit and drank the 2 litres of water, and that was just over half way up.
When I did get to the top I met up with some west Australians and had a beer with them, just before I found my bed for the night and crashed in to it. The thing with this mountain is that it is popular for it's sunrises so an hour or so before daylight the hordes awoke and made sure everyone else did too. Off they marched to the meteorological station which is the second highest point by about 20m to see the sun break through the fog laced with a healthy dose of smoke. A lot of peaks break through the layer of fog and it was definitely a kodak moment.
I took off then to go and have a look at an area called Xihai (west sea) before the crowds got there and started their whooping to get a kick out of the echoes in the canyon. This was one serious little walk too. From around 1650m at the summit the steps take you down to 600m and the only way out is back up to 1650m again. I'm about half way around and looking at these concrete steps built in to the side of sheer cliffs when it dawned on me that this may not be the smartest place to be with the earthquakes and tremors rocking the country at the moment. The main one wasn't even felt over this way so I suppose this mountain range is on a different fault line. Beijing is roughly the same distance and they felt it though. Anyway I got down in to the bottom of the canyon via some pretty well built, though steep, steps and thought about the walk back out when the whooping started. The first whooping echo had me jump when a bloody squirrel in the tree I was sitting under took off with fright. I wont tell you what he got christened but he went one way and I went another in bit of a hurry.
I made it back out via some steep steps, tunnels, more steep steps, a few weird little 'fairytale' bridges, some steps hanging off the side of a cliff and a few more steep steps. This is around the time the hordes of tourists show up, via cable car and a half hour walk. There were literally hundreds of them, all heading to the top while I'm trying to get off the mountain. The highest point, Lotus Peak, was closed so I went straight to the west steps side, took the wrong turn and ended up at the cable car (this is my story and I'm sticking to it) so I thought this is a sign and that's how I got off the mountain.
Definitely worth a good look around but with more than the two days I allowed for it.
Maybe I'll go back for another look, but there is just so much to see in this country. We'll see.
