2. Everest Base Camp Training

We spent our first 2 days in Xi'an arranging our Tibet visa, which we should have by tonight after 4 days of waiting. Once that was in place, we decided to see what else to do around here other than visit the famous Terracotta Warriors. After seeing so many temples and other sites, we were ready to do something active and away from the city so we decided to hike a mountain about an hour and a half out of Xi'an, Mount Huashan.


According to the local students that we hiked with, Huashan is the most dangerous mountain to hike in China. That is very likely the case. The hike was a lot like Angel's Landing in Zions National Park (Southern Utah). It was very steep, requiring single file ascent using a chain bolted to the mountain in many areas, and there were vertical cliff drop offs on both sides of the narrow path.


Originally we had planned to ride to the town adjacent to the hike and spend the night at a guest house before hiking the following day; however, on the bus ride out there (we took the local bus rather than a tour through the hostel) we met a group of college students who were hiking that night to arrive at the top by sunrise. Even though we waited for the local bus that morning standing in line for 1/2 an hour then toured the Terracotta Warriors for a few hours on our feet then stood in line 2 hours for the bus to Huashan Mountain resulting in VERY sore feet, we still hiked that night with a group of 5 Chinese college students.

When we arrived at the base of the mountain, we had a pep talk by someone at a local restaurant telling us all the benefits of hiking at night. First off, since the mountain is so dangerous and has so many cliffs, it is better to hike at night when you can't actually see the dangers, because if you hike in the day you may be too scared. That fact alone sold us! We decided hiking at night would be much safer and less crowded.


After our hike, we weren't sure whether it actually was safer and less crowded! There were at least 10,000 people on the mountain that night. Where else in the world other than China do you have Disneyland crowds hiking a very steep dangerous mountain in the middle of the night?! It turned out it was a holiday weekend (the Moon Festival) - and everyone was off work and out of school, so they wanted to see the sunrise at the top of the most dangerous mountain in China to kick off the Moon Festival.


There were many bottlenecks waiting in line for the single file ascents up the steep ridges and verticle cliffs. It was crazy and hilarious! If the mountain wasn't dangerous enough in and of itself, the throngs of jostling Chinese students made it even crazier. Well, we made it safely and ascended 3 peaks. We were even sore the next day - so I think we should be ready now for Mount Everest Base Camp next week :)