There are five holy mountains in China.

Huashan is one of them, maybe the holiest one.  We took a whole afternoon to climb it. After starting at dome 400 meters by bus, we took a cable car at 800 to the start of the climbing part at 1600 meters. From there on we climbed almost exclusively over stairs to the highest point at 2100 meters. We climbed almost all of the time on irregular stairs carved into the granite of the mountain. There are thousands of stairs, quite narrow, and sometimes very steep. The surrounding view is breathtaking. Huashan has 5 peaks: besides the central peak there is the east, west, south and north peak. A little Buddhist temple on top of every peak invites pilgrims to prayer and meditation.

But there is another very small temple, hidden from the view. The only way to access it, is via the “cliff path” a very exposed path which only very few pilgrims dare to use. Here are no more stairs, but just a few narrow planks fixed to a vertical mountain side. Some old chains to hold on and to avoid a deadly fall a few hundred meters lower. Nowadays it is mandatory to use a mountaineering harness to access it, but this was not always the case.

There is a very beautiful tradition in China: People in love go to Huashan, and fix a lock on one of the many iron chains that secure the climb. Then they throw the key away, locking this way their love for ever. There are many thousands of these locks all the way up to the summits, some old and rusty, some others brand new and shining in the sun. By a strange coincidence it was Chinese Valentines day when we were there, and so we followed the tradition. Although our loved ones were not with us, we have locked up our love for eternity and thrown the keys away

The famous stairs uphill

On special request from Curt's fanclub: our team on the summit of south peak

The impressive cliff path

Thousands of locked loves

My love as well is locked here for ever