My friend and I compulsively planned a trip around a crazy activity done by many people. The “Death Walk”, ‘Death Hike”, Death Walk of Mt. Huashan” or whatever you want to call it. The official name is “The Plank walk of Mt. Huashan.”
Still attempting to adjust to the time difference and being day 3 since our arrival, we were awake bright and early at 3:30 AM. We left our hotel around 6:00 AM to the train station. We took the 7:00 AM High Speed train to Huashan which is only 30 minutes away.
So let me pause for a moment and say, We are both quite Naive. Neither of us speak Chinese. However, We are both smart enough to do research before our trips and be able to spot when we are being taken advantage of.
Once you have gone through the train ticketing and boarding process at least once you’ll get a hang of it. If you do go, make sure you have a LOT of Time the first time. The further interior you get to China the less you will find English speaking persons. We tend to use a translator and prepare our sentences ahead of time with destination, time train number, etc.
We arrived at Huashan North Railway Station exited the train and immediately was funneled right into the laps of the taxi vultures. Reading ahead, there is a free public transportation but to the park entrance. Finding the bus was easy-ish. However confirming that the bus we found was it, was not necessarily comforting. After hopping on the bus I was not quite sure whether that was the bus we were to be on or not. So we hopped off. A gentleman approached me speaking Chinese and waved for us to get back on the bus. We turned around hopped on the bus and I asked loudly “Is this going to Mt Huashan?” Multiple other visitors to china (I’m guessing they were from Europe) shouted “We hope so!”. So we stayed.
Approximately 15-20 minutes later we were dropped off on the side of a very large Round-About. The park entrance was on the other side, however traversing the round-about was not without ease.
**Side-Note – Many times when I travel I feel very comfortable leaving my Passport in the safe at the hotel. NOT IN CHINA! You will need your passport to do about anything: Air Travel, train Travel, Entering national parks, entering other forms of entertainment. So Bring it with you.
Obtaining Tickets to the park also had it’s challenges. Bring cash! We were approached by a park concierge. At first we thought she was just trying to scam us, so the interaction was a bit… rude. however once we understood her role we apologized and thanked her. We were very glad we had her help. Here are the tickets we had to purchase just to get to the Plank Walk:
- Park Entrance Fee
- Bus Ride to the Gondola Lift
- Gondola Lift Up
- Gondola Lift Down
- Bus Ride from Gondola to park entrance
This did not include the Plank Walk Fee, which was actually a rental fee for the harness.
Fast forward: The bus ride to the West Peak cable car was long. I’d say about an hour a bit less. You then must walk quite a ways to the cable car. However the ride in the cable car is beautiful and about 30-45 minute ride. Once you get to the top, you will need to hike for about another 15-20 minutes UP STAIRS. quite a few stairs.
At this point we arrived and hopped in line. It was around 11:00 AM. about a 4 hour trip just to experience this short beautiful walk. While in line, you are literally on the edge with a chain fence preventing you from falling. Due to the amount of oxidation and or rusting of the metals in the fence you begin to question the integrity of functionality. We questioned our sanity multiple times up until now. However at this time the choice to turn around was impossible. The width of the line would not allow you to retreat. You are simply stuck in line watching others perform the trek.
The view is amazing. Once you step out the adrenaline takes away the fear. You are focused on doing the walk not noticing the height, the surroundings etc. I’ll let the photo’s and video describe the rest.
Language is not an issue. When you are with others experiencing this beauty and craziness you find ways to communicate. We were on the tiny peninsula of a mountain with about 10 others. Everyone seemed like celebrities wanting photo’s with you. After spending 30 minutes or so absorbing the emotion of what we just did we headed back. The same way.
Oh did i mention this is two way traffic on the planks? Yes, it’s scarier than the photo’s look. The return trip is where I lost it. I panicked. I had to take a moment and my friend had to talk me down. But the view…. OMG it was amazing. The entire trip to and from was about 1 hour 15 minutes or so.
After the quick trek we had to sit and just let it all sink in. Review our footage and photo’s. We did have our moment when we said “OMG did we just do this” and then realized the time. We had a ticket for a 5:00 PM Train and it was 1:00 PM. We hopped up and took off looking for the West Cable Car.
After 1.5 hours of millions of stair steps we finally arrived. It may be obvious but we were exhausted and started to fall asleep. It was a LONG day.
A few other photo’s of hiking the top of the mountain to and from the Plank Walk.
JetBoyErik 
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