向外国友人简单介绍华山
Hua Shan is the highest of China’s five sacred mountains. It is 120 kilometers east of Xian. It has five peaks that resemble the petals of a flower. The highest peak is 2180 meters (7085 feet).We had had discussions about going to Hua Shan with some graduate students from Computer Science. That didn’t work out due to changes in schedules on both sides. Also, they were planning to do the climb at night to be able to reach the peak at sunrise. That did not appeal to us. We wanted to spend a night on the mountain. Fran’s department arranged a trip for us, making reservations at the simple hotel on the North Peak. They sent two graduate students to accompany us, though they had not been to Hua Shan before. We met them at 8:00 on Saturday morning and took a taxi to the train station. There we asked around and located a mini-bus. The bus made a couple of stops. One was to see a presentation about the traditional medicines grown on the mountain and a chance to buy some of them. It probably would have been interesting if we understood Chinese. Our guides gave us the general outline about what was said. The other stop was a quick lunch stop.
There are two approaches to Hua Shan. [Chinese proverb: “There is one road and only one road to Hua Shan,” meaning that sometimes the hard way is the only way.] The west entrance involves 10 kilometers of walking on a road before you start climbing. We went with the east entrance, where the bus brings you to the base of a cable car that goes up to the 1500 meter North Peak. Our plan was to walk up to the North Peak, then climb to the four other peaks the next day and take the cable car down.
We started the climb in the early afternoon. The path consists of stone steps with rough chain link handrails in the narrowest areas (we wore our bicycling gloves for hand protection). Physically, it is more like climbing the steps of a skyscraper than trails at home. However, the temperature was about 95 degrees and there w