TAI'AN, CHINA
There are five sacred mountains in China, but the most sacred is Tai Shan. For centuries it's been a place of pilgrimage for scores of Chinese who have climbed the mountain and offered sacrifices at its summit temples. Legend has it that if you scale Tai Shan, you'll live to be 100. No less than five Chinese Emperors have made the journey to the summit; from its peak Confucius proclaimed "The world is small" and Mao declared "The East is red." I climbed it today and announced: "My legs are tired."
But it was an amazing experience, and worth every sore muscle.
I set off this morning at 9 am, armed only with a bottle of water, four muffins, a bag of pistachios, some oat calcium digestive biscuits, and the last of my Xi'an apricots. Oh, and a Snickers bar. (Okay, that actually sounds like a lot, doesn't it?)
Anyway, this was unlike any other mountain I've climbed before. The path to the summit is laid with 6,660 stone steps, and along the way there are dozens of temples, shrines, arches, bridges, caves, and terraces from all ages of its long history. There are also hundreds of places where the boulders and cliffs that line the path are carved with sayings in elaborate calligraphy--again, some of it dating back a thousand years or more. I have to say it's the most beautiful graffiti I've ever seen. It was amazing, too, to think about the tremendous effort that went into creating a staircase (and temples!) up the side of a mountain, all without the aid of modern construction tools.
The journey to the summit took nearly five hours--that's five hours of climbing stairs; think about it! Good thing my knees are in decent shape. And luckily there was enough interesting scenery on the way, both natural and man-made, to provide a convenient excuse for stopping frequently to take a look. Some of the named features I saw included the Midway Gate to Heaven, the Path of Eighteen Bends, the Cypress Cave, the Dragon Spring Nunnery(?), and the Archway to Immortality. I also encountered some interesting twisted trees and rock formations, as well as some beautiful long-tailed birds and a scampering creature that could have been a stoat or mongoose. By the final dizzying stretch of stairs to the South Gate of Heaven, most of the climbers (myself included) could only manage a few steps at a time. At times I felt a little like Frodo climbing the Winding Stair above Minas Morgul--only without Gollum ahead of me to offer encouragement.
At the top, though, the terrain leveled out, and there was a whole complex of buildings and mini-peaks to explore. Some highlights included the Azure Clouds Temple, with its strange iron roof tiles, where elders give offerings to the gods; the Jade Emperor Temple, on the highest point of the mountain; and Sunrise Peak, where climbers gather at dawn to watch the sun come up (Chinese legend states that the sun begins its daily journey across the sky from Tai Shan). On a clear day you can supposedly see the ocean from here, over 200 kilometers to the East. Unfortunately, today it was grey and misty, so I could only see some of the nearer peaks, and not the terrain below. But I guess that added to the atmosphere, so to speak. For a long while I just sat on a boulder and looked out over the misty mountainside.
Although there were hundreds of Chinese climbers, I only saw four or five Westerners at the summit. I talked to one of them, though, a very cool guy named Justin from Melbourne, Florida(!), who's backpacking around Eastern Europe and Asia. He's just out of the army and about to start school at UCF. Small world, eh? We ended up hanging out at the summit and exploring the alliteratively-named Rear Rocky Recess, a forest of pines with some really cool cliffs and rock formations. By then it was late afternoon, and time to head back down the mountain.
Tai Shan really is a unique place, and climbing it was an unforgettable experience.
At the risk of sounding like a total dork, I have to admit that part of my inspiration for visiting the mountain was hearing the excellent song Tai Shan by Rush almost 20 years ago. The lyrics really do a good job of describing the experience of being there, so I reproduce them here now (this will no doubt be the first and last time I quote Neil Peart in my journal):
Tai Shan
High on the sacred mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air
Clouds surrounded the summit
The wind blew strong and cold
Among the silent temples
And the writing carved in gold
Somewhere in my instincts
The primitive took hold
I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity
If you raise your hands to heaven
You will live a hundred years
I stood there like a mystic
Lost in the atmosphere
The clouds were suddenly parted
For a moment I could see
The patterns of the landscape
Reaching to the eastern sea
I looked upon a presence
Spanning forty centuries
I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity
I thought of time and distance
The hardships of history
I heard the hope and the hunger
When China sang to me
There are five sacred mountains in China, but the most sacred is Tai Shan. For centuries it's been a place of pilgrimage for scores of Chinese who have climbed the mountain and offered sacrifices at its summit temples. Legend has it that if you scale Tai Shan, you'll live to be 100. No less than five Chinese Emperors have made the journey to the summit; from its peak Confucius proclaimed "The world is small" and Mao declared "The East is red." I climbed it today and announced: "My legs are tired."
But it was an amazing experience, and worth every sore muscle.
I set off this morning at 9 am, armed only with a bottle of water, four muffins, a bag of pistachios, some oat calcium digestive biscuits, and the last of my Xi'an apricots. Oh, and a Snickers bar. (Okay, that actually sounds like a lot, doesn't it?)
Anyway, this was unlike any other mountain I've climbed before. The path to the summit is laid with 6,660 stone steps, and along the way there are dozens of temples, shrines, arches, bridges, caves, and terraces from all ages of its long history. There are also hundreds of places where the boulders and cliffs that line the path are carved with sayings in elaborate calligraphy--again, some of it dating back a thousand years or more. I have to say it's the most beautiful graffiti I've ever seen. It was amazing, too, to think about the tremendous effort that went into creating a staircase (and temples!) up the side of a mountain, all without the aid of modern construction tools.
The journey to the summit took nearly five hours--that's five hours of climbing stairs; think about it! Good thing my knees are in decent shape. And luckily there was enough interesting scenery on the way, both natural and man-made, to provide a convenient excuse for stopping frequently to take a look. Some of the named features I saw included the Midway Gate to Heaven, the Path of Eighteen Bends, the Cypress Cave, the Dragon Spring Nunnery(?), and the Archway to Immortality. I also encountered some interesting twisted trees and rock formations, as well as some beautiful long-tailed birds and a scampering creature that could have been a stoat or mongoose. By the final dizzying stretch of stairs to the South Gate of Heaven, most of the climbers (myself included) could only manage a few steps at a time. At times I felt a little like Frodo climbing the Winding Stair above Minas Morgul--only without Gollum ahead of me to offer encouragement.
At the top, though, the terrain leveled out, and there was a whole complex of buildings and mini-peaks to explore. Some highlights included the Azure Clouds Temple, with its strange iron roof tiles, where elders give offerings to the gods; the Jade Emperor Temple, on the highest point of the mountain; and Sunrise Peak, where climbers gather at dawn to watch the sun come up (Chinese legend states that the sun begins its daily journey across the sky from Tai Shan). On a clear day you can supposedly see the ocean from here, over 200 kilometers to the East. Unfortunately, today it was grey and misty, so I could only see some of the nearer peaks, and not the terrain below. But I guess that added to the atmosphere, so to speak. For a long while I just sat on a boulder and looked out over the misty mountainside.
Although there were hundreds of Chinese climbers, I only saw four or five Westerners at the summit. I talked to one of them, though, a very cool guy named Justin from Melbourne, Florida(!), who's backpacking around Eastern Europe and Asia. He's just out of the army and about to start school at UCF. Small world, eh? We ended up hanging out at the summit and exploring the alliteratively-named Rear Rocky Recess, a forest of pines with some really cool cliffs and rock formations. By then it was late afternoon, and time to head back down the mountain.
Tai Shan really is a unique place, and climbing it was an unforgettable experience.
At the risk of sounding like a total dork, I have to admit that part of my inspiration for visiting the mountain was hearing the excellent song Tai Shan by Rush almost 20 years ago. The lyrics really do a good job of describing the experience of being there, so I reproduce them here now (this will no doubt be the first and last time I quote Neil Peart in my journal):
Tai Shan
High on the sacred mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air
Clouds surrounded the summit
The wind blew strong and cold
Among the silent temples
And the writing carved in gold
Somewhere in my instincts
The primitive took hold
I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity
If you raise your hands to heaven
You will live a hundred years
I stood there like a mystic
Lost in the atmosphere
The clouds were suddenly parted
For a moment I could see
The patterns of the landscape
Reaching to the eastern sea
I looked upon a presence
Spanning forty centuries
I stood at the top of the mountain
And China sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity
I thought of time and distance
The hardships of history
I heard the hope and the hunger
When China sang to me
posted by John Kuge at 10:04 PM
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