Day 18, May 25

We woke up on Thursday morning at 4:15 am and made our way up the mountain in the dark to a good viewing point to see the sunrise.  Luckily we had a flashlight. The sun came up around 5:00 and it was spectacular. The tree in the foreground is called the "Dragon Pine"

Luckily the skies cleared and we had a very different view of the mountains. In fact we retraced our steps from yesterday to see the peaks in full sunshine.  Here are some of the same locations but with very different views.  Notice how I am hanging onto the railing. This little plateau hangs right over the edge and today I can see the sheer drop.

Remember this one.

You can see why these mountains were the inspiration for  Pandora in the movie “Avatar”

Pictures cannot capture the reality of the Yellow Mountains.

We were very lucky to have a clear day as it is cloudy and/or rains for 200 days per year.  We then continued to climb higher on cantilevered stairs clinging to the mountainside.

  By the time we finished we had done 180 flights of stairs.  Needless to say our legs were burning.

Around noon we started to descend beneath the tree line and saw some familiar sights.  Even azaleas cling to the rocks.

The cable car back down to the base was spectacular.  We drove back to the city of Huangshen, visited a traditional ink factory and toured the "old town" ......but by then we were dragging our butts....we had been up since 4:15.  So we went out to the airport and just waited for our flight  back to Shanghai.

It was a late flight so we did not get to our hotel until 2:00 am.  We said goodbye to Lyndsey and June.  We fly back to Toronto on Friday but will post one more blog before we close this chapter of our travels.