Quite a popular thing to do in China, Lonely Planet says, is climbing mountains at night to arrive at the peak by sunrise. Based on my experience in China, this is a quite popular thing to do, especially among student couples on vacation.
Ed and I weren't originally planning to do this 7 hour trek to Hua Shan's eastern peak (a town some 3 hours from Xi'an by train and bumpy as all hell minibus
), at night but luckily some unfortunate circumstances forced it so. You see on the train I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to call our airline and re-confirm our flight, before 72 hours of our flight back to Tokyo. Remembering this on a shoddy crowded train to a mountain village some 90 hours before the flight in a region with almost impenetrable dialect is a scary proposition. After some long distance calling in the best restaurant in the world
which was paid by mass tip, we met Yens, possibly the nicest person in the world, who found us at her hotel trying to explain that we needed to use their phone and internet for drastic, urgent reasons. She helped us for 2.5 hours!, and we drank beer together for .5 hours (which she refused us paying for because she was a host (I can only hope she comes to Canada so I can pay off the psychic debt)).
So by this time it was 9pm, dark as all hades, and we struck off for the mountain, surrounded by a countless students and other cats, dressed for a rave in dayglo cat ears or bracelets or devil horn hair bands. We all bottlenecked at the ticket booth, where a man screamed and shouted through a megaphone at the budders and violent and surly, throwing them to the back of the line. Ed stood back while I dove in amongst all the clamorers at the booth, 15 minutes pressed against glass which I consider in the top 3 or 4 worst experiences of my life. (Advice for anyone going to China: bring old/current student cards. I forgot mine but everything would have been half price). So now the mountain. Despite all the people, this was far from safety precautioned walk, but incredibly dangerous and harrowing. First it was eerie, then it was bottlenecked and slow and why did I go on this climb,
then it was completely emptying because it was so dangerous, no time to think of anything but the next step. We'd move up these near verticle sets of narrow stairs in a big line...in the dark. All I could do was focus on every step and the sound of anyone falling, which would have severely injured/killed myself and about 20 others.
Then it was something else. On the first panoramic plateau by the north peak (about an hour from the east peak) I saw the stars that had been getting closer with every step. I saw the town lights below. I saw the dayglo and flashlights moving ever up from the sheer drop just left of my feet. I don't want to do anything but just skip on this for fear of ruining it.
Then it was a rest at the base camp of the North Peak, trying to find a spot amongst the sleepers and the weary.
It was 5am, and sunrise was 6. 
We ate expensive apples and drank expensive water we bought at a rest spot just below the north peak, and hiked our way to the east and the sunrise.
After a lot of rest and eating and no talking, the day sun shone bright and we worked our way down, seeing all our fellow hikers as they were. Students,
some people in business coats and shoes (!), all dead tired. Also, coming up the path from the gondola to the north peak were the new hikers of the day, families and ice cream eaters and people wanting photos of Ed because of his Mao shirt. We took the gondola down,
stuck in a huge line with gates and all these strange tourist trappings that were a far cry from the mountain we climbed. It was a weird ending.
But at this point, thank God it was over. At the base, we had troubles getting to town, bought Hua Shan mountain gold medals (which impressed customs at the Tokyo airport) took a mini bus to Mengyuan,
ran like exhausted manaics for a terrible train ride to Xi'an (I had to lean on baggage for 3 hours with a man who hiked Hua Shan for 19 hours), hailed the motor-rickshaw that took many lives from us, arrived at the best hostel in the world, drank beer, showered, and then slept, about 2pm now till 10:30pm.
Next Post is the Conclusion.
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