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.
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. Indisputedly, without the paths, the numbers would be very few and the access much more difficult too.
I have put a larger collection of photos here into the gallery.
DJS 20090730