We spent the night at the city of Huangshan, which is about two hours short of the summit of Huangshan mountain. “Huang” means yellow and “shan” means mountain. We will be staying in one of about 5 hotels that are located near the top of the mountain. To get here we took a van for an hour and a half, a shuttle bus up the mountain road and a cable car similar to what you see in large ski resorts. The elevation here is about 5,000 feet.

It was raining when we left this morning and the rain has continued pretty much the whole day. There are shops that sell plastic raincoats, including rain pants for 10 Yuan – about $1.50. That was one of our best investments. We passed up the booties they sell, so our shoes need to be dried out tonight, but it hasn’t been cold, just wet.

The heavy cloudiness has obscured some of the views so far, but this place is obviously incredibly scenic — steep granite peaks with pine trees clinging to the crags, misty clouds drifting among the foliage.

We will be up here two nights, so we may get some more photography opportunities tomorrow.

Our Lonely Planet guide book says that Huangshan “is not one of China’s sacred mountains, so little religious activity is evident,” but I wonder whether there may be more to the story than that. The scenery is so stunning, it looks like the place calls out for sacred.

Any Buddhist or Daoist scholars out there who can shed more light on the subject? What religious significance do the Huangshan mountains have?

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