Climbing Hua Shan – “One of the most terrifying hikes in the world”

Hua Shan (华山) was the highlight of our trip to China, & also the most physically challenging. The views were amazing – and the sheer rock faces were quite literally breathtaking! Photos don’t do it any justice so you’ll just need to head there to see it for yourself 🙂 And if you aren’t up for making the climb on foot, there’s a cable car that takes you very close to the North Peak. From there, you can hike to any of the 5 peaks (see a map of the mountain trails at the end of this post).

Just a warning that this post is going to be a bit photo-intensive, so I’ll write a separate post on how to get to/from Hua Shan. Since we didn’t have a lot of time, we only made it to the North Peak. We will definitely be back & next time we’ll stay on the mountain overnight to hike to the other peaks.

There are 2 ticket booths, one for the cable car and the other for the foot path. There was no one when we arrived to buy tickets at the Western Gate (which is about a 10-15min walk from where the bus drops you off). From there, it is an uphill climb to the North Peak, with the last 3km being very steep. You will need to hang onto the rusty chains to steady yourself as the steps are narrow, uneven and steep. Also, these paths get pretty narrow considering they expect two-way traffic to flow. We brought gloves with us and were really glad we had them.