Huang Shan--On the mountain

We were spending the night on the mountain and decided to take the cable car up to the summit so we could spend the rest of the day hiking at a higher elevation. Our plan was foiled by the non-functioning cable car. Our only choice was to hike the 7.5 K up the eastern steps to our destination in the cold and rain. The branches and pine needles were encased in ice so the forests looked silver at a distance.



About 15 minutes into our hike we saw a warning sign: "Tourists do not throw your food at the monkeys and do not tease the monkeys." We figured the monkeys would be smarter than us and spending the day out of the rain. Ten minutes later a man heading down the mountain passed me and just as he did, I heard shrieking and howling coming from behind me. The man ran back up the stairs and I saw three monkeys racing after him out of the corner of my eye. They kept chasing him up the path and I saw one of the monkeys bare their teeth. I climbed as fast as I could not knowing what had set off their temper. Turns out the man had a bag of food and they were after him for the snacks inside!

The climb took us a little over three hours and we were soggy, cold and tired once we reached our hotel. The views around the hotel were spectacular, enough for Jay to blurt out "HOLY SH@*!" when he first saw the view.



That night we spent time recovering with hot showers, a big meal and foot massages. The hotel was rather cold but luckily they had big, red down jackets in the rooms for early morning sunrise viewing. That became part my staple wardrobe as almost all of my other clothing dried in the room.