Some six hours by bus from Nanjing is a mountainous area known as the Yellow Mountain, HuangShan. It is said that once you have seen this area, you no longer need to see a mountain. If this is an excuse not to visit mountains, so be it. They are certainly such that one could feel that one has indeed seen the stereotypical specimen.
Above; the ‘Western Sea’, showing the collections of ridges. Below, what passes for a map of the area.
We did the lengthy bus ride and stayed in a(n) hotel in the town closest to the park area - think National Park and you will be close enough to understanding. These are the ‘seas’, so called because they fill with cloud.
I could write a lot more, but the pictures say as much with less effort on your part.
I am afraid my reaction to these paths was inappropriate: I felt Fred Quimby had persuaded the cartoonist that does Wily Coyote and Road Runner to draw the path onto the mountain - and lo, there it is. One could describe this as one face of communism: if you can go into the mountains, then we must all be able so to do - and so the path is necessary. Given the ‘famous’ nature of the mountains here, one can
see why. Undisputedly, without the paths, the numbers would be very few and the access much more difficult too.
DJS 20090730
