The Anhui province is located in eastern China and is home to Huangshan or the Yellow Mountain. People come from all around the world to hike up Huangshan to see the amazing “sea of clouds.” It’s called the “sea of clouds” because when you get to the top of the mountain during the sunrise or the sunset the sky looks like a sea of clouds, I have the pictures and the video below to prove it.
Hiking up Huangshan is by no means easy. Before we even got started with the hike we stopped by a local supermarket and picked up some snacks which consisted of water, some sweet buns, and some other random little snacks. Here’s what the mountain looked like from the very bottom.
This is what the very beginning of the trail looks like we literally climbed up THOUSANDS of steps!
There are two ways to get up the mountain, the eastern steps and the western steps. The western steps take a lot longer but is a much more scenic route, we took these on the way down. We took the eastern steps going up because we wanted to make it before sunset and since the eastern steps take less time we decided to go that route. Either way, it’s still absolutely exhausting, most of the hike up the mountain you are literally just going up steps imagine a stair master that never ends and that’s Huangshan. However, the hike was definitely worth it!
One of the most amazing things about Huangshan is that all of the supplies (i.e. water, food for the restaurants, snacks, and anything else you cant think of) are carried up by hand, yes that’s right by hand. All of the trash or things that are no longer needed are also carried down by hand. Here’s a picture so you can exactly what I mean.
These guys were sprinting up and down the mountain like it was nothing, meanwhile my friend Brian and I were schlepping along. Needless to say we finally made it to the top of the mountain just in time to catch the sunset.
After the sunset we grabbed some food which consisted of some fruit snacks, crackers, and a large bowl of noodles.
After dinner we hung out for a bit and then made our way into our rooms, we had to be up at around 5 am the next day if we wanted to catch the sunrise. The room we stayed in was in a hostel on top of the mountain and consisted of around 20 bunk beds that were all lined up next to each other. Fortunately for us we were the only ones in there so we had the whole room to ourselves. The room was absolutely freezing and for some reason there was a fan on! We stole the blankets from all of the other beds to keep us warm. The beds themselves were mattresses on top of some cardboard.
We finally got to bed and woke up early the next morning to catch the sunrise which was absolutely breathtaking, the only word that really comes to mind is magical. We were perched on the edge of the mountain with dozens of other people from all over the world that were all waiting to catch a glimpse of the “sea of clouds.” It was literally freezing up there, I can’t remember a time that I have ever been so cold.
The sunrise was one of the greatest experience of my life. Afterwords it was time for us to find our way down from the mountain which was quite a tedious task. The problem was that we needed to find the “western steps,” and nobody knew where they were or what they were, the language barrier at this point made it quite tough! What was even worse was the fact that we found a sign which pointed to the western steps but in two opposite directions (see the video below). Finally, we figured out where to go and followed a small group of Korean guys down the mountain. We were lost on top of the mountain for around three hours but some some spectacular things.
The good news is that we finally made it down!
Here are some videos from Huangshan:
