The hairy guards of the ten thousand steps

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White Christmas on the Emei Shan
January 2013, Emei Shan, Sichuan, China
A wet snowflake landed right in my neck. For a moment, I enjoyed the refreshment, then I pulled the hood up. Twenty steps to go, now fifteen. I almost made it. I took good care on the snow-covered floor. It was pretty slippery up here. Not a sound was to be heard but the crunching snow under our boots. It could not be far till the next pavilion. I wanted to sit down and drop the backpack. Finally, the bend in the way was reached. I stopped, breathed, and watched forward. I threw my head back but as far as I watched could not find the ending of the steps. It seemed like we still had quite a way to go. I took a sip of cool monkey water, grabbed my bamboo walking stick and took the first step.
Roberto and I started our hiking adventure on Christmas Day down in the town at about 500 meters altitude. We walked the first few meters through town equipped with crampons, bamboo hiking sticks, some food, warm Cumulus down sleeping bags and dry change of clothes. In the very first moment I felt a little silly in between of all the normal people around us. But it did not take long until we were the only people and only one or two other hikers crossed our way every hour.

Emei Shan is one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains. Many monasteries and temples are situated on him. It is also home to many Tibetan macaques, curious monkeys spoiled from the tourists. Busloads of visitors come to see the 3070-meter summit every day, but we hardly saw any of them. Most people take the bus till the highest stop, walk a few meters and then change into a cable car.
Just behind the first temple we found ourselves surrounded by huge ferns, vines and bamboo groves and for a moment I felt as if I was back on the way to the Mexican Mayan ruins. The jungle was full green and – as a rainforest has to be – wet. It rained constantly. We did not care at all. I whistled Christmas carols when the first long staircase came into view. I could not even see the where the stairs ended. We fought ourselves up the stairs – step for step. I thought of my friend Katya. I always felt pity for her living in the fifth floor without an elevator. After some fifteen minutes we made a break at the top – just to watch around the corner and spot part two of the never ending stairway. In this way we continued our hike for three days. Up, up, up and down.
Early in the afternoon we made a little detour back on the 720 meters high Qingyin Pavillion. Shortly after that we reached the monkey area. “Put food and things underneath your rain jackets”, another tourist advised us. “Monkey will see it” she whispered with a mysterious look in her eyes. The wild monkeys of Emei Shan are known to be spoiled. In the past tourists tried to get closer to them giving out fruit and nuts in order to take pictures. Now the Tibetean macaques ask for their bribe to let the tourists pass. They are not shy anymore at all. We felt like in the border between two countries, bribed by the monkey-soldiers. Roberto could not escape a monkey attack. A monkey clung to him and the backpack and bared his teeth, while another sat next to the two watching them. We tried to get rid of them using our walking sticks. I did not want to hurt either of them, so I just poked them softly with my walking stick. The monkey did not even notice. The teeth looked sharp and I was pretty afraid for Roberto who constantly swirled around in circles in order to confuse the monkey. The theater went on for a few minutes until the monkey finally grabbed our only water bottle and left Roberto in peace.
We were suddenly no longer tired and took two steps at once. Unfortunately the monkey had taken our only water bottle. The monkey lost the interest when it found out that there was no lemonade in the bottle. That was my moment. I gathered all my courage and got the bottle back from the floor.

Later that afternoon, the drizzle turned into snow. We took short breaks only, because we did not want to freeze in the sweaty clothes. The view of the fog in the valley below was beautiful. We met only one or two other hikers every hour and after 4 pm we were all by ourselves. At the Venerable Trees Terrace (Hongchunping) we decided to move up until the next temple. The little daylight was well reflected by the snow and even after sunset we did not need to use our torches. Three hours later we reached the 1752 meter high Xianfeng Temple, and got into a pretty expensive room (compared to prices in the rest of China). There was no heating or running water. Roberto managed to organize a thermos bottle of boiled snow for us. I used the boiling water to disinfect the water bottle from monkey saliva. This year we celebrated Christmas Eve with instant noodle soup, German bread, sausage and honey instead of beer, wine and goose, and it tasted delicious. We went straight to bed at 8 pm and enjoyed a 12 hours sleep inside our warm cumulus down sleeping bags.
By the following morning all our hiking clothes were stiff and frozen. It was around 0°C cold inside our room. We started hiking and got warm again soon. The winter wonderland that surrounded us was of a special beauty. There were frozen ferns, snow-covered bamboo trees, and foggy mountains all around us. The temples appeared even more mystical and after two hours of lonely hiking a squirrel lost his fear and climbed on Roberto’s toe.
Soon we reached a so-called Elephant Bathing Pool at 2070 meters, and suddenly we were surrounded by masses of other tourists. We have made it near the highest bus station! There were day-trippers with rented coats, high heels and monkeys food all over the place and the higher we climbed the more tourists came towards us. The tourists bought far too expensive Red Bull cans, meat slices in plastic and candies and marshmallows to feed the spoiled monkeys with. The expensive food and water prices increased almost immeasurably, and our food supply was coming to an end. An old man tried to sell me 600 milliliters of boiled snow for 5 yuan. In the valley I could have gotten two big bottles of beer for that money!
We slept in a guest house about one hiking hour below the summit. Inside the room the thermometer rose to -2 ° C. A bed cost 60 yuan for each of us – twice as much as in Kashgar and three times more than in Xi’an. Not even the toilet paper was included in the price (3 yuan for a package of tissues), but we got funny smelling boiled snow for free and even a key to lock our little room.
I preferred not even asking for the price for a simple meal. Instead we shared the last instant noodle soup with a German sausage for dinner. All we had left to celebrate our summit day by the next morning was one sausage, two sliced of bread and 600 ml of boiled snow.
By the following morning a complete silence surrounded us. I scraped the ice from the window and could not believe it: the fog was gone! We jumped out of bed and into the frozen clothes. This was our moment! The summit was not far and the view to the sunrise must be perfect.
We speeded all the way up within less than an hour and could not believe our luck. We leaned against the wooden fence at the cliff, tried to breathe properly and held each other’s hands while we watched down to nothing but a giant cloud. We had just missed sunrise for a few minutes but we were happy as one can be.

Behind us was the Samantabhadra statue, a 42 meter high gold statue replied with many confident faces representing Samantabhadra, one of the eight Buddhist bodhisattvas. Next to us was the Jinding Si temple and in front of us the cliff with nothing but sky and clouds as far as the eye can reach. Between the clouds we spotted few other peaks, temples and monasteries. In the last days the summit was said to be foggy and the view not too spectacularly. We held each other and enjoyed our triumph over the endless stairs. The day trippers missed a lot. They drove two hours by bus, walked 15 minutes through icy steps with curious monkeys, drove another 20 minutes by cable car and then took some pictures for half an hour before the tour continued. We, however, were overjoyed, because those who have hiked all the way up can appreciate their success properly. .
This was both the first white Christmas for a long time and a very different and very intense experience without Christmas feast, wine and Christmas music.

They look cute but they have long teeth

This monkey stole Roberto’s water bottle

If you stop they will attack you. If you ignore them they will leave you in peace

The endless uphill keeps me warm

At the top

View from the top

Just a few minutes after sunrise

The sea of clouds

Proud of ourselves

prepared with a bamboo walking stick and our big sleeping bags

At the Golden Summit

Before all tourists arrived

We made it all the way up

Into the wild monkey area

Time for a short rest

View from the Golden Summit

Roberto enjoys German dark bread and saussages

HHard Wok Café

The lonesome way through the fog

winter wonder land

Quite some kilometers to walk

Lonesome winter wonderland

One of the monasteries

Sometimes my legs moved automatically

Alwway uphill

Endless stairs

In the afternoon it started to stow

The white way

A short break after a long stariway