The night of 13th was one hell of a night.
I hiked up a mountain.
With about 20 other people.
In the dark.
Reached the summit at 5:10 am.
To see the sunrise from 2.1 kms high.
It was freezing cold when we stopped for rest. The sweat made it worse.
The mountains were lofty and cold.
The hike was taxing mentally. And physically.
I came up with new swear words.
But it was worth every single step I climbed.
Hua’shan Village is located 120 km from Xian. We got directions to a bus stop in Xi'an where we got into an uncomfortable minibus brim full with people. We were the only foreigners. As we approached the village, this cluster of granite mountains emerged, like purple giants against a black sky and red moon. We would climb them.
We didn't get off the bus immediately; we just sat there while someone gave what must have been a pep talk in Chinese for 30 minutes, at the end of which everyone clapped and cheered. We had no clue why. I didn't really know how big a deal this hike was - honestly, I had never hiked before in my life.
We walked into a store which sold supplies - lucky charms, flashlights and that kind of stuff. We bought a bottle of water and orange juice, to suffice for the 8 of us. Yes, we *really* didn't know what we were going for.
There was a ridiculous entrance fee of 100 yuan, and then a steep gradient of steps. Because this was my first hike, I experienced a lot of new things - like fatigue, the "wall", hallucination, that kind of thing. But there was a great beauty in that night - there was a brook flowing alongside us for the first quarter of the hike, which provided a very magical ambiance. At the first vantage point we reached, there was a rock face that echoed our voices most clearly. The granite was white but we couldn't tell if it was snow or the full moon reflecting off the granite. As we looked up from the ravines, flanked by the towering granite hills, the sky was dotted with bright stars. Everything was mystical.
Two from our group, Alex and Jan, were really fit and struck ahead with a good pace. I was, every so often, the straggler of the group, but I was too scared of the dark to let that be. So, my pace went back and forth, from OJ-induced vigor to figuratively passing out against a tree.
We reached the middle peak by about 3:30 am. We had stopped at various points for a break, sometimes merely a 100 steps away from where we started, but the cold made it hard to rest in our sweat soaked clothes. We plodded on, giving each other the push we needed, carrying each others backpacks (by which I mean, I never carried my own backpack). At each stop, there was a tiny kiosk, selling water, orange juice and eggs, which gave us a sense that this hike probably had some religious significance to the common folk, like it usually is in India.
It must have been dangerous. But it was too dark to be aware and we were too tired to be afraid. Somewhere here, we lost power in two flashlights. At 5 am, four of us reached a summit. We had held on to chains, walked on on boardwalks, footholds and steps that were more than a foot high. It's not clear what we did, really.
When we reached the summit, there was a pavilion of sorts, where there was a guy renting out thick coats. In about 10 minutes, we realized why. The cold started to get to our muscles and the wait for the sunrise made it worse.
As it got light, we slowly discovered what we'd just done. We wouldn't have done this in daylight. There were points where we were hanging from chains for dear life, only to discover in the morning that it was a 1.5 km drop straight down if the chain or our shoes gave way.
It was indescribable by photos, indescribable by words. At this point, cliches are all I can use to express myself.
As we got down, we saw more of how beautiful the mountains were. I haven't seen anything like this ever before. White rocks that go on till the nether world. And so big, I felt so small. We reunited with the people we lost track of that night and descended about 30% of the way before taking the gondola ride down back to the village.
We hitched a ride along the brook that accompanied us the night before and climbed into a train to Shanghai. I slept straight for 17 hours.
Onward to more adventures.
Here’s Thingy’s version of the climb:
http://hitchhikersdiary.blogspot.in/2005/11/mighty-mighty-huashan.html