Emei Shan

The view from the top of Emei Shan

Lisa at the top of Emei Shan

We saw monkeys

Back at the van after a long hike.

Well, classes are done for the semester, grades are handed in, and Mark and I are enjoying the winter break.  Last week, Wang Ying and Duan took us and the Nates and our friend Dong Bo (he works at Sea Turtle and Nate Kelly lives with his family) on a trip for a few days.  We went to Emei Shan which is a very famous mountain and very important to Buddhists.  It's about 4000 meters high.  The first day, we drove about half way up the mountain in Duan's van.  We stayed the night in a hotel on the mountain that was very near some hot springs, so we enjoyed the evening soaking in the warmth with snow all around us.  In the morning, Mark was unfortunately ill (he always has such bad timing) so he stayed at the hotel with Wang Ying while the rest of us took a van and then a cable car up the rest of the mountain.  It was so beautiful!  We were above the clouds so there was no snow on the very top and it was quite warm and sunny.  It was a sea of clouds with other mountain tops and cliffs poking out in the distance.  I wish we had a better camera.  Ours really didn't do the scenery justice.  At about 11:00am we started hiking down the mountain.  The plan was to hike a portion of the way down the mountain where Mark and Wang Ying would meet us with the van and drive us to the hotel.  We were told that it would be a 44 kilometer hike!  After some discussion Nate and Nate and I had convinced ourselves that there must be some mistake.  Perhaps it was only 4 kilometers and something got lost in translation.  But no, after about 4 hours going up and down stone steps we realized it was actually 44 kilometers.  And once you've committed to the steps, there's no alternate way down.  It was definitely the most physically demanding day I've ever had, but it was some extremely beautiful scenery.The first portion was very difficult as the stone steps were covered in snow and ice.  It probably would have been a lot easier if I had a crazy carpet or something.  Then once we got lower, the snow melted into some soft rain, the forest was lovely and green and we saw waterfalls.  We even ran into a vicious looking family of monkeys who stole our food (fortunately we had eaten most of it already).  I heard that some people train the monkeys to pick travelers pockets, so we were glad they were just after our food.  Finally when I didn't think I could make it any further (Dong Bo had been telling us "Oh, it will only be about one more hour" for about 3 hours) we rounded the corner and saw Mark and Wang Ying.  They had gotten tired of waiting for us at the bottom and Mark was feeling much better, so they started hiking up to meet us.  It gave us all a well-needed burst of motivation to see them!  We walked back down with them and in about an hour and a half, reached the bottom.  It was dark by that point.  The whole hike down took us about 8 hours.  What a beautiful and exhausting day!  God's creation really is wonderful!

Lisa