Cruising the Yangtze and the World’s Most Dangerous Hike

« Return to China

I’m alone when I set off. For all the crowds in China, they have left me to discover this one on my own. The narrow ledge gives way to a vertical crevice, with erratic iron bars descending to the next section, steel stitches across the cut of rock. The wind has picked up, my hands are numb, but I unclip the latches and carefully lower myself down. Beneath my feet is a 1000m drop. I’m overwhelmed by one of those “what the hell are you doing you bloody idiot” moments. I get them occasionally, perk of the job. I reach the last rung, swing to the right against the sheer rock face, and there it is - the photo. THE photo. Thin, crackled wooden planks hug the rock, covered in ice and snow, and although it is a moment of terror, it is also a moment of triumph. I have found the source of a rumour. It was at a tourism schmooze talking to another travel writer that I discovered the picture might have a source in a Chinese mountain. Cosmically, I received an invitation from the Chinese Tourism Authority to visit the country the very next day. After some online research and helpful Google mapping, I figured I could get there on the same ticket. Call it divine manifestation. These things happen to me. I call it Modern Gonzo. Anyway…

From here I begin to walk along the plank, clicking in one Carabina after another, until I stop in the middle, look down, look ahead, look up. I have another moment. A moment of sheer awe, lost in the bosom of the nature. The surrounding mountains are enormous, sharp, and desolate. I am just a speck surrounded on all sides by the great outdoors, and I feel very small indeed. Ice dust falls on my head from above. It’s better not to think about rocks doing the same. So I continue walking along the planks, and it’s not until 20m or so later that I hear the laughs and giggles from a group of Chinese, clearly having a whale of a time coming down the crevice. I stop and wait to take pictures of them, to give the planks some scale, and click out at the end to find a little clearing with a small temple in a modest cave. The only way back is along the same path, and that means walking around the others, but by now I’m used to the planks, the view, the fear, and it’s easy getting past them, exchanging cameras to take some pictures, as if this were just another normal place to find yourself on a Tuesday afternoon. Up the crevice, back on the narrow ledge, I thankfully return the gloves, and continue along the path to the other peaks. With the safety harnesses, I would be hard pressed to call Mount Huashan the world’s most dangerous hike. Scary as hell for the novice like me, a fun day out for any climber, but probably not your cup of green tea. True danger comes without busloads of tourists.

I spend the following day getting roasted in the hot sun under a typical clear white China sky. A 14th century fortress wall surrounds Xian, as striking as the Great Wall of China, and its possible to rent a bike and ride along it, a 13km scenic way to see the whole city. The wall boulevard is flat with broken bumpy brick, but it costs 100 RMB for tourists and locals alike to enter it, and there are just a handful of tourists on bikes and foot. It seems like a waste, but when I asked a guide why they don’t open it up to the public, his answer was that it would be overcrowded and subsequently ruined. “China,” he says, “too many people.” Certainly it feels that way trying to cross a street, which requires a working knowledge of the old arcade game Frogger. I see mothers with babies rushing across the street as cars and buses miss them by inches. The trick is to shadow a local, who knows when to walk, run or stop. Shadowing tourists is like letting a 6 year old teach you how to use a loaded shotgun.

It’s a beautiful day, and the city is alive with commerce. Malls and stores, with brand names like Converse and Nike and Anything is Possible, sometimes the same store repeated on every block. I pop inside and the prices are close to those you’ll find at home. The days of coming to China for stupid cheap deals are over, and with the government clamping down on fakes and knock-offs, it signals that the Chinese are making money, because someone has to be buying these things, and it’s not the tourists.

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