Huashan Mountain — Local services in Weinan City

We bought our ticket from the tourist center and entered the bus to the west gate. Those who want to trek the mountain can start their trekking from the pathway starting near the tourist center which takes around 8-10 hours

It took us 40 mins to reach the west gate entrance and we walked around 500 m to reach the cable car station.

There are totally 5 peaks in Hua Shan namely East, West, South, North and middle. The plank walk is in the south peak and the chess pavilion is in the west peak, which are the major two attractions of this place.

Irrespective of these dangerous trekking pathways you can still find people of all ages climbing these paths enthusiastically. Near the south peak summit behind the rest house you can find the entrance to the plank walk. When you walk along the narrow pathway made from cutting down the mountain stones you reach the point where you must wear the safety harness to proceed further as it’s the only thing that’s holding your life from ending. The rent cost of the harness is RMB 30/-, and you can keep your belongings on the opening in the side which is not so safe but there are no other options. It is preferred not to bring too expensive things in your shoulder or hand bag if you plan to do the plank walk.

The pathway ends in a small cliff with a small temple carved out in the mountain which is not of much importance as this trekking has become like an adventure sport and people rarely care about the temple. Such kinds of trekking are very rare in the world for common people and such rush of blood can only be experienced here.

The return journey is through the same way we came and the whole journey in and out of the plank walk on a day when there are fewer tourists can be completed in 1 hour. What we experienced can be written in words but the feeling we got cannot. It’s a must do before you die adventure and can be written in your bucket list, as for us we have already scratched that...

We visited here as our first stop on a 5 day Xian tour. It was a bit cloudy so we had some beautiful views with clouds. We first took a bus to the Mountain entrance where we had to ride special HuaShan buses to the cable car station. The cable cars are quite modern and offered incredible views of the special mountain features. After exiting the cable cars, there are 2 main options, climb the North Peak or the South Peak. We only took the North Peak as it had the famous HuaShanLunJian 華山論劍 (DeepSeek intro):

Huashan Lunjian (literally "Discussing Swords on Mount Hua") is a legendary martial arts contest from Chinese wuxia (martial heroes) fiction.

Popularized by Jin Yong's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes, it refers to a grand tournament held atop Mount Hua where the world's greatest martial artists duel to determine the ultimate champion and claim a powerful martial arts manual.

The term is now a popular Chinese metaphor for any high-level competition or summit meeting among masters of a field. (End of intro)

After descending, there are many lucky artifacts and shops.

PSA: Beware of scammers, they have people pretending to be customers to try to impress on you that the shop is giving them a fantastic deal when it fact they are incredibly expensive. We were looking at some herbs when the fake customer insisted the shop first grind the herbs before weighing it, saying there will be some weight loss due to the grinding, the shop agreed only when the customer agreed to buy it once grounded We almost fell for it. The fake customer also pretended that his boss called him on the phone. We did agree but and they ground the herbs, then the price was announced and it was incredibly expensive (remember they didn’t weigh it before so we had no idea how much we were buying) We called their bluff and walked out. Luckily they didn’t gang up on us. It was a lesson well learned. Beware!!! Almost ruined a...

Simply a must visit destination if you are a fan of martial arts novelist Jin Yong. Even if you are not, what this mountain offers will not disappoint. Ascending it on foot is reserved for the adventurous and super fit for it is a long long hike up the thousands of steps, zigzagging as it makes its way up (see photo). Ascending it in a gondola / cable car is recommended. The ride doesn’t last long, around 10 minutes, but the view you get is nothing but spectacular. Once you arrive at the cable car station at the bottom of Huashan, the vertigo already begins to hit you. With the grand scale of the mountain as the backdrop, what you see when you raise your head are many tiny, super tiny, gondolas suspended in mid air. You wonder immediately how they are hung. The answer is that the cables holding the gondolas are just too thin and far to be discerned. (see photo). If you are faint-hearted, this one glance may send shivers down your spine. You may even ask yourself the question: ‘Do I really want to take this ride?’ Once you reach the top, there are 5 peaks to visit. 100% of visitors, like me, wouldn’t miss the North Peak as it has the best vantage point to look at why Huashan is so famous. Most visitors will also hike up to the Middle Peak which offers a reverse view of the North Peak. If you have time, and the energy, you may continue to the West and East Peaks. From my observation, it is mostly the young and adventurous who circumnavigate all the...