A Trip to Mount Hua

Mount Hua is a famous mountain in Chinese history and has been written about extensively in both reality and fiction. Its steepness and danger are world-renowned, and every year a large number of tourists come to climb it. Below, I will share a 600-word essay on my trip to Mount Hua.

On the morning of December 12, 2018, the weather was still clear. After getting up, I strolled along the streets of Huayin City from east to west, crossing a bridge over a dried-up river. This river originated from Mount Hua, but the water was very shallow.

After crossing the bridge, I walked through the old suburban streets, where many stalls had already opened for business. I walked a distance back, going upstream, and the riverbed was being excavated. It seemed that because the water was so shallow, they were going to fill the riverbed and create a tiered waterfall landscape, but its future appearance was not yet clear.

On the river path, some elderly people were already exercising and taking walks. I went to the barber shop opposite and shaved my head, then slowly returned to the hotel, where my wife and child had already woken up.

After breakfast, we took a taxi to the scenic area. We entered the crowded ticket hall and queued for tickets, then queued to enter.

Today I experienced the most queuing of my life. It was a total of four times. The longest queue was in a zigzagging walkway where we repeatedly queued and moved forward. After passing through this long zigzagging walkway, we finally boarded the scenic area bus. Here we could see the face and silhouette of Mount Hua.

The bus carried the tourists, and after passing through short streets and roads, it sped along a steep, winding mountain path carved out between long cliffs.

All the drivers had to stop at a designated “face-washing and sobering-up area” halfway up the mountain to wash their faces and continue driving, ensuring they stayed alert. This kind of transportation service was something I had never seen before.

The car stopped not far from the cable car. Women with children followed the hawkers and guides who advised them to take the mountain climbing slide, slowly going up.

Many tourists followed the stone steps upward. After the wide stone steps, we entered a long queue again. Those who took the slide went directly to the front of the slide line. Finally, we boarded the cable car.

The cable car on Mount Hua was different from those in other places. It had to pass through six or seven iron towers with large spans before reaching the top of the mountain. This was the longest cable car I had ever known. The width between each section of the cable car was very large, and it had large, steep ups and downs. It was the most thrilling and exciting cable car ride.

The cable car went up to a peak, then quickly slid down towards the deep valley below the steep cliff. Shrieks echoed within the cable car, then it slowly climbed up again towards the next distant high tower. We, along with many others, repeatedly went up and down like a roller coaster at the top of the towering mountains, between the bare mountain peaks and deep valleys. Tourists inside the cable car kept screaming.

The beauty of Mount Hua flashed past in front of us and below our feet. After experiencing the first plunging fear, I calmed myself down and took out my camera. Through the gaps in the cable car, I looked for the beauty of Mount Hua, savoring its beauty, and felt grateful that the route we had chosen and walked was the right one.

The cable car finally stopped at the East Gate peak. After queuing for several hours, we were already hungry.

We climbed to the top of the mountain and sat down on the ground by the path like other tourists, eating our packed lunch on the mountainside.

Then we arrived at the East Gate Peak, overlooking the magnificence and grandeur of Mount Hua. There were many people in front of the temple on the mountain peak. From the top, we could see the many majestic peaks of Mount Hua nearby, looking extremely beautiful against the blue sky under the scorching sun. We could also vaguely see Huayin City in the distance below the mountains.

Following the flow of people, we descended along the chain to the end of the giant rock where we had eaten earlier, and then climbed up to another stone crevice. The paths on Mount Hua were like this, one after another, stone crevices, stone cracks, and cliffs. There were iron chains attached to the cliffs, allowing people to climb up, reaching the gates of the five peaks: East, West, South, North, and Central.

Many handsome men and beautiful women climbed on the cliffs between the cliffs, challenging themselves by clinging to iron chains on the cliffs, seeking thrills and demonstrating their strength.

I had reached the top of a cliff path and saw my daughter climbing up the iron chain on the cliff with many other tourists. My heart was filled with joy and pride for my daughter’s bravery and courage. So I returned to the bottom of the cliff and climbed up the iron chain on the cliff again.

The cliff was vertical. The part close to the top was slightly tilted downwards, with the rock pressing against my chest and stomach, making it a bit difficult.

I arrived at the “Mount Hua Swordplay” stone stele and looked down at the magnificent and dangerous peaks. My daughter and wife took excited photos together. Finally, we reached the “South Heavenly Gate”. We passed through the archway and the temple and arrived at the cliff-hanging plank road in the air, a place my daughter had long yearned to visit.

Walking through the archway, I looked to the right towards the cliff. Many tourists walked slowly along the cliff-hanging plank road carved out of the mountain. Some tourists, venturing out towards the edge of the cliff in the distance, screamed in fright. It was indeed quite frightening.

I inquired at the ticket booth. It would take about an hour or two to queue up. So we went back the way we came. In the photography studio inside the archway, we saw many beautiful women happily taking photos of themselves climbing rocks against the backdrop inside the studio, 20 yuan per photo. They would be able to show off their adventurous experiences to the world. Haha.

We climbed up and down between several mountain gates for several hours, and we were reluctant to leave. We continued climbing towards the top of the Western Peak to experience the feeling of reaching the top again. We continued walking towards the South Peak. This was mostly downhill.

At this time, there were still tourists coming from the South Gate who had just gotten off the cable car, and there were also many older people. Near the South Gate cable car was a fork in the path. We saw a sign for the “Clever Capture of Mount Hua Path”, and we walked down this less traveled and longer path with my wife and child.

As soon as we entered the gully, we walked for a long distance along the steep, precipitous cliff of Mount Hua, going down along the steep stone steps of Mount Hua. It was really hard to walk.

We walked for a long distance before we gradually started meeting people climbing upwards from here. There were also people with children going down from here, and some strong foreigners were jumping down like monkeys, very agile.

After a long time, seeing others’ ease made me feel even more tired. I also thought that maybe there was a closer path to go down near the cable car. I was afraid that my daughter wouldn’t be able to persevere, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to carry her. But I just saw my daughter grit her teeth and descend with a quick, quick, quick step.

Two hours later, we finally arrived at the bus stop. We took a quick photo next to the heroic statue in “The Taking of Tiger Mountain” and hurriedly got on the bus.

At this point, we were finally free. We returned to the entrance of the scenic area, and it was already dark. We ate dinner in the hall, took a taxi back to the hotel, and we were all exhausted.

We were so tired that we fell asleep as soon as we got into bed. After coming down from Mount Hua, we all walked a bit awkwardly, moving slowly, especially when going down stairs. We had to hold onto the railings and stick our bottoms out, taking each step slowly and with difficulty.

The hotel staff laughed when they saw us and said, “Did you go to Mount Hua?” Haha. Looking back, it was still a very interesting experience.