There are five holy mountains in China.

Wutaishan is one of them, maybe the holiest one.

If these lines give you a déjà-vu impression, you are right. I guess, people on all other holy mountains will convince me that their holy mountain is the holies one.

I made my due diligence and found out that both are right. Huashan is the holiest of 5 Taoist mountains, and Wutaishan is the holiest of four Buddhist mountains.  One particularity of Wutaishan is that both Chinese Buddhist tendencies, i.e. the Tibetan and the Han Buddhism are unifies here, at least in principle. Besides that, there are some 20 religious sects in this valley.

Huashan is very spectacular and wild, Wutaishan is just enormous. There are some 50 Unesco World heritage classified temples in this valley, and some more are under construction. Five holy peaks, all above 3000 meters hight surround the Wutaishan national park. The highest of them is also the highest peak of Northern China.
We decided not to climb one on these peaks, but instead went to visit the most impressive temples. We started with Pusading 1080 stairs lead to the top. It took us less than half an hour to climb it, but other people spend much more time on that. They climb the steps one by one, kneeling down at every step and prostrate in deep faith, very impressive. What is much less impressive is the great number of beggars all along the climb.

All these temples are is pristine condition, a lot of money is invested here.

But there is another temple, Nanshan. It is a Tibetan Buddhist temple, and I was curious to see it. At first it was not easy to find it, but then, at first sight, I immediately felt that what I suspected was through. No money here, the temple is in a bad condition, like most of them which I visited in Tibet. Many buildings inside are closed, only a very few visitors find their way up here. So, if all Buddhist tendencies are equal in China, some seem to be more equal then others....