Leaving the city was a good choice. The population was on the move so every bus seat was taken, every space in the terminal jammed and I did manage to get on a bus and make the journey. After locating my hostel, I decided to walk over and see where the starting point would be for the AM. Seemed pretty easy but several written warnings on the internet encouraged me to be sure. At the hostel, there was the expected mix of Westerners and locals. The Westerners were from all over Europe, Australia and the U.S.
Now, a word about the journey. Emeishan is a 10,000 foot high mountain in Sichuan Province. At the top is a Golden Colored Buddha, hence it’s called the Golden Summit. This is one of the four famous Buddhist Mountains in China. There are more than 30 temples all over the mountain. Unlike most hikes, this is not on dirt roads or hiker beaten down paths. It’s all on stairs. Not the high, mule pack steps you will find hiking up the waterfalls in Yosemite (look at me brag about my other hiking exploit). My guess was that to climb 10,000 feet, if the steps were 4-6 inches high, it would take 20,000 – 25,000 stair climbing steps to go up. Two problems with that calculation, the steps are not next to each other so you have some areas where you’re just walking on flat ground between sets of stairs cases and the other issue is no one told them just to build a straight up path. The stairs also go down on the ascent to help get over ridge-lines and around edges of the mountain. This added a lot of walking and of course, for every down stroke, you know there will be a comparable upstroke and then the rest of the climb.
The next morning, after an unsatisfying breakfast, I trudged out in shorts and a running shirt, into a slight mist that was to be my partner for the day. The other early risers at my hostel all were heading in a different direction to top, due to time constraints. I was carrying minimal gear. A toothbrush, some food and drink and my camera and a lens were in a borrowed pack. Of course, I did have raingear. No change of underwear, shirt, socks or deodorant, oops! (Hey, there was no room!) I had my camera perched on my chest in a very unique camera carrier I bought from a friend in the U.S., plus another longer, heavier lens in my pack. My total carrying weight was around 12 pounds in addition to my not inconsiderable own weight. The work from the day earlier paid off as I had no question about the right path to take. The initial walking was on a moderate grade but soon the steps began. I counted the first staircase which was 293 steps. Boy, was this going to be fun! There were some other people around but no Westerners.
After an hour, I met one of the people from the hostel who took a wrong turn and hoped they would run into me, knowing I was on this path so they were looking for me to at least have someone to converse with.
It wasn’t cold but it was off and on drizzle. That causes two issues. The obvious one is that everything gets wet but it also adds to the “excitement” of the uphill climb as footing can be unsure. After two hours, I got to the area called “Joking Monkey Zone”. There are lots of warnings about issues between monkeys and people along the trail and this is one of the best known areas where they will be seen. Of course, with people selling food for the monkeys, people selling opportunities to hold some monkeys, etc. the inevitable interaction between people and monkeys will be an issue. As a side note, Chinese people are known for their intolerance for animals that don’t perform for them. At local zoos in Shanghai, people throw things at sleeping animals to get them to wake up. Anyway, to protect myself, I had a walking stick/monkey deterrent. It came in very useful as a walking stick. I figured, correctly, it turns out, that if I gave the monkeys distance, they would bother those would acted less responsibly. Of course, my goal was to photograph the macaques in the wild, not those being held by others. As it turns out, there would be lots of opportunities for that along the way.
Upward I continued. I got to a passport checkpoint! There were government type of officials with a log book and wanted my name, passport number, etc. Of course, I wrote "Art Vandalay, Architect" and a bogus passport number. This was repeated several times. If you don't get the name, just keep reading.
There were around 10 people in a small group meeting up every few minutes. Lunch time came rather quickly and it was in a monastery called “Venerable Trees Terrace”. The altitude here was 3,300 feet meaning that so far it was a reasonable 2,800 foot climb in 4 hours. This was also supposedly 12 kilometers but I was warned not to trust the distances. Referring to my map, the next section would be a 600 meter (1,800 foot) climb in the next section. Let’s just say, it was grueling. I guess the name “99 Bends” says enough about the climb. The climb tested a lot of things, like endurance, attention as footing was slippery in spots, determination, etc.
Now a word about the other climbers. Other than the lady from San Diego who was spending 5 months in Asia trekking around and was in excellent physical shape and dressed appropriately for the hike, I saw many people who looked like they were just walking around town. One lady who was part of the lunch crew had flat shoes with a slight heel you might wear to the mall. Maybe that’s why a little while later, she was seen “Climbing” the mountain in a sedan chair you can hire…
With no idea how close to the end of this section I was, I began to hear some kind of Buddhist spiritual music. Wow, this really puts a hop in your step. I thought, “I’ve made it!” As I continued with renewed vigor and didn’t see any buildings or people, I thought there’s no chance this is just music being played on speakers in the trees could it?” (You can probably guess that answer.) So with little choice, I continued. But the mirage and misdirection really wasn’t that, as around the next bend sat the long awaited end of this climb. I was very relieved to reach the top of this section. It was a two and a half hour continuous climb. And since it was now 3:00 PM with the weather worsening, I decided that the next monastery, approx. 1.5 hours away, but on a mostly flat path would be my overnight spot, especially since we were told that it was around an additional three hour hike to the optimal stopping spot beyond the one I was headed to. Reaching the target monastery called, Yuxian Monastery, at 4:15 PM, was enough. I was tired, cold, cranky and hungry. I probably didn’t drink enough on this last section and was ready to stop. After some negotiation on room price, I got settled and anticipated the tasty dinner to be served at 6 PM. I was quite cold so I turned on the heating blanket they provide and tried to get dried out. Since this was a nice warmer, I put anything wet under the blanket. This included my rain gear which I didn’t wear because I was too hot but used to keep my pack dry, my pack because the rain gear didn’t adequately cover it, my shirt, my sock, my shorts, my camera belt, my food and even my money. Can you say, “Soaked to the bone?” The only thing that didn’t get into the bed was my hiking boots which fortunately were dry on the inside, thanks to someone for creating Gore-Tex. Physically, I was feeling pretty good. My days of walking many hours in Shanghai were paying off. No blisters, no real pains except for some strains in my left hip and lower right leg at the end of the long day but never a thought that my body couldn’t continue. Of course, they had hot showers but, alas, no towels, even for purchase, so I couldn’t warm up that way either. I almost got a different room with another bed just to have a drying bed for my stuff. After a fitful rest, I went to the dining area and found a very unappetizing meal of rice and some greens that looked like they got pulled up out in the yard. I needed protein, something that had a mother, something that had a heart, something that was killed recently, anything but rice, greens or tofu. I drank three packets of Ovaltine to try and warm up the inside. (Who is the last person you know who either drank or admitting to consuming Ovaltine?) Needless to say, there was no HBO, no ESPN, etc., just a continuous downpour and lots of wind which meant at least I made the correct decision to stop walking. Despite all of this stuff lacking, my Blackberry and cell phone had full signal strength. Not longer after, it was lights out.
I’m sure I looked something like this…
Oh, wait; maybe that's a wrong photo.
The morning brought clearing skies, a dry body, mostly dry clothes and equipment. At 6:30 AM, with no breakfast since I didn’t want more food at this location, out the door I went to climb an additional 1,200 feet to the next place of any size. This supposed three hour hike took only 1.5 hours which was a pleasant surprise. An even better surprise was the presence of monkeys without a lot of people around. Some of my best images from the hike came at this point. To me, the macaques look almost 3D.
Of course there are always new converts trying to join the monastery...
Breakfast however wasn’t a pleasure. It was noodles on which they put a fried egg. I had my last Ovaltine packet and felt somewhat better. After a brief break and buoyed by the belief that the remaining hike to the top was less than 5 hours, it was back on the trail but this time I stopped in the little kiosks that line the mountain where I had been buying water the day before. Now I was buying fruit like bananas, watermelon, etc. I also had water at almost every place so I would have no issue with cramping or dehydration.
Now, it was clearing and views of the hillsides became apparent. You could now make out some temples down below thinking, “Did I really climb that far already today?”
You could see things up above and began to feel better of course, that’s until you round the bend and there’s another 300 step climb facing you, and then another, etc. I was amazed to finally find myself in a small town teeming with people, cars and buses. This meant the end was near as this location is 1.5 hours from the top. If someone told me I could just get a ride to the top, I may have made a different choice. Probably not. I rented a warm jacket for $3 believing it was going to be really cold and would need it. After around 100 yards, the jacket went onto my small pack with my rain jacket as it was just too warm for me. Hiking uphill burns lots of calories and creates a lot of sweat. At this point, walking through the bedlam of the town and now the trail was crowded with many people all heading to the Buddha at the top. There were three choices, a huge cable car for maybe 50-100 people, a ski lift type of chair for 2 or hiking up the trail one more hour to the top. Of course, I choice the latter to finish what I started. Passing more macaques, I headed up the never ending stairs that look like this from above…
At the trails end, I finally found a protein filled meal and a cold beer. (The Golden Buddha could wait an hour or so.) It was a very satisfying meal with the only remaining member of the party of ten that walked a good distance together the day before. So we toasted to reaching our goal and rested. There was a large group of Germans here and they were the first Westerners seen in the entire trip, except for two British ladies that were going pretty slowly and planning a three day climb. So here’s what the top looks like…
The next decision was whether to stay overnight here or descend. There we just too many people staring at me like it was a freak show, too many people in too small of a space and uncooperative weather that would prohibit the types of photos I had hoped for, so I decided to descend. This was almost no walking. I took the smaller lift chair down, walked to the monkey area and watched people do really stupid things. I got some sweet photos and also took some video, so enjoy what I saw and save yourself the steps…
This is a video remember to click on it and then click on pause so it will load and you won't have to watch a jaggy movie...
Then it was a two hour bus ride that took three hours. The Chinese haven’t figured out this part yet. There are buses headed in both directions, very efficient. There are cars jammed all over trying to compete with each other and the buses for space. Finally, any chucklehead who wants to just leave their car along the narrow road can do so which squeezes the vehicles on the single lane each direction road into smaller spaces. A very ugly scene especially when coupled with the people walking to and from their cars on the same roads without any sidewalks so even less room. Since everyone here loves to blow their horn non-stop for no reason, when you give them a slight reason, they just go crazy!
Back to the same hostel as the first night for a night’s sleep and it was on to the next thing. A very active two days! I figure the total steps walked was around 80,000 of which 35,000 were stair steps up and 10,000 were stair steps down. My dogs were tired but by no means done walking on this trip.
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