Mount Sanqing, or Sanqingshan, is a sacred Taoist mountain, with the highest point at 1817 m. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and renowned for its exceptional scenic quality with 48 granite peaks and 89 granite pillars, many of which resemble human/animal forms. It was a two hour drive to the south cable way (Chinese call it a ropeway). We could have hiked the three hour climb up the mountain but wisely decided to reserve our energies for the top.
The weather wasn’t great on the first day, as we were in and out of cloud most of the day. The upper peaks were hidden, but we found a decent barista and had coffee with a view. The inscription on the cup holder says ‘it is appropriate to climb mountains and drink milk tea’.
We started on the south east trestle. I thought I’d be really nervous walking on a concrete pathway seemingly stuck to the side of a mountain, but I got quite used to it.
Although quite of lot of the trestles were flat, most of the mountain paths involved steps. The routes are well marked and everyone sticks to the concrete set paths. We did a lot - and I mean A LOT - of steps. We estimated several thousand up and down over two days, such a great workout! And if you are too tired/old to do steps there's always a sedan chair ;-)
Navigation was straightforward on-the-whole but the maps were variable. We found different features on different maps and no one map seemed to have all the paths/junctions. So we flicked between 4 different maps as we went along to find which best represented the path layout directly in front of us.
The views were wonderful even though it was misty.
Many of the rocks on the mountain are named and we tried to spot them as we went. Some were more obvious to see than others. One of the most famous rocks, ‘Sichun Goddess’ was easy to spot as it was surrounded by tourists. This was no surprise as we were close to the top of the eastern cable car which is a newer entrance, and by far the more busy, side of the mountain.
We saw the ‘Giant Boa’, also called ‘Python appearing at the mountain area’.
The most exciting rock - which I’d been looking forward to - was ‘Penguin offering peach’. Well, I could see the penguins but the peach was very tiny.
[Talking peaches, as an aside, it was rare to see Chinese snack unhealthily. I’m sure they must, but a common packed lunch seemed to consist of noodles (they carried flasks of hot water with them to rehydrate these), egg, sweetcorn, apples and water/tea.]
Transliteration of Chinese into English often caused amusing results and I enjoyed snapping all the instructions to which we should adhere.
We climbed Yuhuang Peak to see the non-view (clouds had gathered again). A young boy stared at JC. “Ni hao,” said JC. The boy visibly jumped at this tall westerner saying hello to him in his native tongue!
We wandered down to the ‘Watching clouds terrace’ and indeed we did watch clouds as they hid any view. As the daylight faded we did a quick trot around Longevity Gardens. First up was the Taoist Priest rock carving. Then we saw the ‘Sealion swallowing the moon’.
We stayed in a hotel just below the south cable way station. I’d set my expectations low for this one based on reviews, but we only needed a clean bed and hopefully some food. It did both very well. [Another aside - Chinese menus. We use various translation apps to try to interpret menus. We get mixed results and side step things which sound weird. Eg. ‘A can of incense from Tianmen ’ (under soup section), ‘stone eat canon meatloaf’, 'dry pot civil ears' and the hands-down winner ‘Diyi she is an old duck’.]
We slept over 10 hours (that’s what a million steps does to you) but were out promptly on Monday to make the most of the day. It was disappointingly misty but we headed out to see what we could see (literally). A few signs caught my attention.
As we hiked up to the ‘West coast trestle’ the sun started to break through. And the views were breathtaking. We really did feel on top of the world. The clouds were evaporating and rolling down the slopes.
You can just make out the trestle path on the left hand side of the photo below. Sometimes the clouds lifted completely so we could see the whole mountainside.
Our first named rock of the day was ‘Monkey king appreciating treasure’. And indeed she was.
The concrete paths are very tastefully designed - built around trees which I loved.
I’m not great at heights but I put on my brave face and walked the glass bottomed walkway to dare myself.
After a three hour walk we arrived at Sanqing temple, the main attraction at the western edge of this sacred mountain. We also found a tomb of Zhan Biyan, a Taoist Master who ran Sanqing temple during the reign of Emperor Jingtai (reigned from 1449 to 1457). The sign said it was in the 'Zhuan' position of Sanqingfudi (the mountain) which is related to the oldest system of feng shui, the form branch.
We briefly explored Dragon and Tiger Hall. This is located in the 'Zhen' position of Sanqingfudi - the sign said something about the dragon being wood and the tiger lead.
Next up was the ‘Sunshine coast trestle’.
The views weren’t quite so amazing this side (the mountain had made me fussy). I did another brave thing though and stood on the glass platform.
We bounced across the swing bridge and spotted the ubiquitous plastic macs drying.
Hall of Jiutianyingyuan has a roof carved out of two pieces of stone. It's in the 'Li' position meaning fire.
The boa/cobra rock came into sight. Yesterday the cloud was above us. Today the peaks were crystal clear but variously different parts of the mountain drifted in and out of view.
We headed south, trying to walk paths we hadn’t yet explored. Navigation was hugely complicated at this point by us wanting to walk a path which only appeared on one of the maps. But it was definitely there! I found a Ruth shaped hole, and a narrow gap which we squidged through, JC getting stuck at times due to his camera rucksack.
We walked the Jade Terrace marvelling at all the wondrous landforms we saw whilst trying to avoid the occasional onslaught of an incoming tour group. More named rocks were found:‘Baby chick’(you can just see it peeping over), ‘Two breasts’, ‘Horses head’ and 'The Immortal points out a road'. Some need more imagination than others.
We had a spare hour so did a run around the ‘Longevity gardens’ again. This time we climbed over the ‘Nuhei’ (cow). It looked a bit more like a cow in real life, honest.
And that was the magnificent Sanqishan mountain. I knew JC liked it as at one stage he said “this is so good”. For those who know him, he is not one to overdo the superlatives. A fantastic day out is usually labelled “not too bad”, so “so good” was stellar. It was indeed a super stellar mountain and we were sad to bid it farewell.
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