"Hua Shan Mountain" Briancrooke's photos around Xi'an, China

A TripAdvisorâ„¢ TripWow slideshow of a travel blog to Xi'an, China by TravelPod blogger Briancrooke titled "Hua Shan Mountain" Briancrooke's travel blog entry: "Hua Shan mountain is a sacred mountain for the Chinese. Many Chinese climb the mountain as a pilgrimage and some even walk down the mountain backwards as part of that pilgrimage. This is crazy as some of the steps are practically vertical. I set out early from Xi'an to tackle the sacred mountain. Met Philippa from Australia on the bus. We teamed up for the climb. It's not like a proper trek as there is steps almost all the way up this mountain but the steps are so steep in places that my calves were aching for days afterwards. The view from the top (when we made it) was not great, fairly misty and hazy, a typical Chinese view! Still managed to get some decent pictures. Nearly killed myself coming down some of the steep steps. There are solid handrails to hold on to on the way down, if these were not there I'm certain there would be regular fatalaties. Hopefully the pictures show hos steep these steps were!" Read and see more at: www.travelpod.com Photos from this trip: 1. "Entrance" 2. "View from the bottom" 3. "View" 4. "Love padlocks. Don't ask" 5. "A lot of love padlocks" 6. "Yet more padlocks" 7. "Flute playing bin man" 8. "Philippa from Australia" 9. "Steep ascent" 10. "Looking down on Philippa" 11. "It gets steeper" 12. "I would not carry that up there" 13. "Posing half way" 14. "Don't look down" 15 ...