Updated (6/6): Planning a trip to Emei Shan? Check out my Emei Shan travel guide for more information.
Going up, and up, and up...
I made it nearly two years in China without visiting one of China’s holy mountains, but I finally succumbed on my recent trip to Sichuan. After plans to visit Songpan fell through, we headed off to Emei Shan (峨眉山), one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China.
Hiking Emei Shan is best thought of as a very long, very steep staircase. This is meant, I suppose, to make the hiking experience easier: the path is clear and takes you exactly where you want to go. But whoever designed this system — which is prevalent at almost every Chinese mountain — forgot that climbing stairs is way, way harder than walking along a path. And we didn’t even climb the whole way. Due to time constraints, we took a bus and then a gondola up to Wannian Si, a temple located at roughly 1000m of altitude. But by the time we got to the temple where we were going to spend the night, I was starting to realize why no Chinese people were climbing up the mountain with us. It is almost too hard to be fun.
If the stairs were a bit of a drag, the mountain’s monkeys perked us right back up. Perked us up with adrenaline, I mean. We had read about the monkeys in the guidebook, seen signs about them as we ascended the mountain, and even gotten a warning from another traveler just minutes before, but we were still surprised when, in a split second, they encircled Dan and snatched his stuff out of his hands. Apparently the monkeys — properly called macaques — have learned that plastic bags are a sure sign of food. But not this time. All the brigands got were two shirts and a bottle of overpriced Propel water. They returned the shirts, but we left one monkey happily sucking Propel out of a hole in the side of the bottle.
Shirts aren't food, monkeys! Ahem, macaques.
The final straw of our Emei Shan experience was the mist. The mountain is famous for bad weather, and we avoided the worst of it when it didn’t rain. But the soupy mists kept us from seeing anything more than the vegetation on either side of the path. As we approached the summit, the fog only got thicker. We were already tired from all the stairs, so when we were at 2,500m and facing the prospect of either an expensive cable car or a few more hours of hiking to the summit, we decided to throw in the towel and take the bus back down.
Emei Shan is not an entirely unrewarding trip, but you should know what you’re in for. Given the unlikelihood of good weather and the difficulty of the climb, I would probably skip it unless you’re a die-hard Buddhist pilgrim. The monkey raids do make a good story, though.
The view made it all worth it...
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
usually these mountains are described as holy for a reason … history, sure, and scenery .. but mostly for subtle energy .. chi, qi, shakti, whatever name one wishes .. how was that aspect?
Perhaps I am insufficiently sensitive to the subtle energy, but it’s hard to appreciate when huffin’ and puffin’ up a mountain! More seriously, the monasteries that we passed through were almost deserted. If we had spent the night further down on the mountain, where there may be more monks, we might have gotten more of a flavor for the mountain’s spiritual side.
“….we decided to throw in the towel and take the bus back down….”
The macaques tossed in the shirts, and a copy of the home game, and said thanks for playing.
the new design looks good! really impressive