Huangshan - China at it's Peak

Huangshan (yellow mountain)is the best of the best mountains as far as the chinese are concerned. Four hours bus ride from Hangzhou takes you to the base of this multipeaked range, reaching over 1800m high. A cable car up is worth the money as you will be doing plenty of climbing up and down steps at the top anyway.

The mountain is pricey, especially if you just miss the half priced low season ticket in winter.. but you can judge from the pictures if its worth the 200yuan. People have spent months up on the top, painting and writing to the beauty and sheer magnitude of the place. However, if you can't do a month then a night is worth the expensive hotel beds.

Get up early and go watch the sunrise, even if its cloudy or wet (which it sadly was) then it is still worth heading to refreshing terrace to see if the clouds are rolling around some of the mountain peaks, an ocean of mist with rock islands disappearing and reappearing.

Culture-Vulture And Gourmet Drives On 4 Continents has some nice sunrise over a sea of cloud photos if you are interested. If I wanted a reason to go back to China these photos are just that.