Climbing Hua Shan, near Xi'an

We set off to climb Hua Shan quite late so we got to the bottom at around 6pm, at that point we proceded to climb with our backpacks for 4 hours in darkness, only with our torch to lead the way. Most of it was more or less vertical chains in which you grab onto to haul your self up the rock that has steps probably 2 inches deep. So Climbing the '1000 foot ladder' on an empty stomach in the dark was pretty tough. We managed to find some where to stay which was maybe the best place we have ever stayed in...literally a boulder that some poor person has bothered to chisel out the entire middle of. We finally settled down and at around 10pm or so and then had to be up the next morning at 4am for an hours hike to the East Peak where we could see the sunrise. All the hard work the night before was well worth the view. Then we had to get the cable car back down and the bus back to Xi'an becvause we had a 30 hour over night train to catch to Chengdu.