7am arrives far too soon and it really is significant effort to drag myself out of bed. Luckily, I had made to right decision in packing my stuff the night before, so I don't have to mess around this morning. I grab my stuff and head out. I'll get food and stuff when I get to HuaShan. I get out of the hostel by 7.20 and I have arranged to meet the Swedes just before 8 at the train station. I arrive just about 8 and the place is bedlam, people everywhere, but no sign of any tall blonde Swedes. I look around for a bit and then I see them, so I get my ticket and we get on the train. So I have a hard seat as it is called, although I am not sure why, it is fine, I mean it has padding so it is not like sitting on a wooden bench or anything. I get some fruit on the train and then sleep for part of the journey. Just over an hour and a half and we are there, there are also 2 Israelis, Leo and Tal who are coming with us, by the way the guys are talking it is sounding to me like they are all pro hickers and I am just a casual hicker. I am slightly concerned, but i'll just keep that to myself, don't want that one getting out of the bag.
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The station is in the middle of no where and there is not a great selection of places to get some supplies. I do the best that I can which involves some bread, my bananas from the train, some peanuts, 3l of water, 3 snickers and some cracker things. Not the best selection, but I should have enough energy in there to get me over the mountain. While I am getting my supplies Leo is negociating some taxi for us, when I get back from the shop we are bundled in to a car, 7 people in to the 5 seater, cosy. The journey is short, allthough that does not stop us having a few near death instances. We get dropped of at the botom of the trail, and there are the usual contingent of people trying to sell us things. The weather is not good today, we are in a cloud, or thick mist, and there is no air movement, it is very humid. It is not long before it is clear I have the wrong clothes, again. Sweating away! So we get to the gate where we need to pay, 180, not cheap, but it should be a really good climb, even though we don't have the weather. The other guys have some fake student cards that gets them in for half price, why didn't I think of that? We start the climb and head up along a river, crystal blue, you can see right to the bottom, it would have made a great photo if there was blue sky instead of this mist. The gradient is not too bad in the early stages and we just keep plodding on. We pass various shops on the way up, selling everything from drinks and food to souvenirs. We stop for lunch around 12, and I get stuck in to my delicious bread, mmmmmmm.
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After a couple of hours we come across the padlocks and red ribbons. These are attached to the chains on the side of the trail as we are getting higher. These are to represent luck, and safe passage. There is even a place up here that will engrave your lock for you, or sell you one if you don't have one. Sounds like some business, suckers if you ask me, anyone that gets them engraved. I can see from the amount that are here that engraving is big business because more are engraved than are not. There are not too many people doing this climb today, which is nice, probably due to the weather. Then we hit them, the stairs. we come round the corner and are faced with a nearly vertical wall of steps, with chains in to the rock on either side. They are also very small steps, half the size of my foot, which make it even more challenging. I can't even see how far up the steps go because they disappear off in to the clouds. As we start the climb I realise that I am last in the order we start the ascent, lets hope no one falls eh. We are climbing up for a good 5mins, straight up, I take the opportunity to look back down, what a sight. The stairs are surrounded by rock to the left about 10ft and about 2ft to the right, but when you turn round and look down that is when you get the true perspective on what you are climbing. As we get to the top I think that is it, but alas, it is not, just a little platform containing someone selling stuff, then another ascent. Our climb is made all the more challenging by some people actually coming down these stairs at the same time. They are the real crazy ones. After this steep section the path relaxes a wee bit, and we all know what that means when it comes to climbing; more pain to come. Indeed that was the case, quite a few more challenging near vertical climbs before we reached the North Peak. As we near the summit we notice a lot of Chinese people who are walking around without even so much as a sweat, there must not be too much of a challenge now that we are at the top. As we move round we see that this is where the cable car drops people and that is why they look so fresh. You wouldn't believe how many people have just cheated and got the cable car up. Out of everyone here I would say 95% have got the cable car up, with only about 5% actually making the effort to climb up. The view, although obscured by the clouds is still spectacular, very eerie. As the mountain is mostly limestone, you can see deep grooves carved through out it where the water has eroded the rock. I haven't seen anything like it before, not on this scale. I had worn trousers and packed a fleece and coat because I had thought that there might have been some wind up here at the top, but not an air. Very still and very sticky, I think I have soaked through my clothes at least five times today, then dried out. Fresh is not a word that I would use to describe my state at the moment. Of course being a group of 5 white people garnishes us with quite a bit of attention. We pose for many a photo, it's good craic, I enjoy how much the Chinese love to take my photo, it's funny. The most amusing thing is that if this was to happen at home you would be called a racist. Only taking photos of minorities, but here it is completely normal. Some people even try to take your photo and be all sneaky about it, they pretend to take a photo and then when you have passed them they turn round and take a snap of your back, all they need to do is ask and i'll pose for them no problem.
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We grab a bite to eat and rest at the top to take in the views. The clouds start to give way and there is even a peak of some sun. The Swedes decide that they are going to try for some of the other peaks, the Israelis decide they are going to head back down the soldiers trail. I have a decision to make. On one hand I'm not to excited about more climbing for a number of hours, on the other hand the soldiers trail does not look like it would be much fun, especially in the damp conditions, I'm not really interested in death at the moment. After a few minutes of quiet consideration I decide that I am going to go with the Swedes, after all with a bit more of a climb I might get some awesome views. We say our goodbyes, never knowing if we will ever see them again, ha ha ha. The climb up to the other peaks was epic, out came the sun and we got to bask as the mountain lit up and we had the perfect vantage point. We take in as much as we can before heading back down to the North Peak, we decide to get the cable car to the bottom as the sun has set and we would be ill equipped to tackle the descent with what we have.
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At the bottom we are forced to get a bus, as there is no walking on the road. We are told it will leave us at the train station, however when we get out there is no train station to be seen. We are surrounded by people trying to heckle us in to their buses, we decide to follow the people who got off the bus, as they are hopefully heading to the train station. They weren't, they went to another bus, we ask the guy where the train station is, he says it is a taxi ride away, but he is going to Xi'an. He is an organised tour bus, we ask how much it will cost, knowing that the train will cost 20, he asks the driver and then asks how much do we want to pay. We say 20, but he days 30, given our lack of options at the moment, and not knowing what time the train would even be at when we got there, we opt of the bus. Everyone on the bus seems happy to see us, all saying hello. The tour guide come up to us after and asks where we are staying and then confers with the driver and agrees that he can drop us both close to our hostels. He tells us to relax and get some sleep as the journey could be about 2 hours. We eat what is left of our food and try to get some sleep. What a result, no hassle and it ultimately turned out to be much more convenient. I was dropped about 5mins from my hostel. Straight in, shower and then bed. What a day.