【正文】 two graduate students to acpany us,though they had not been to hua shan before. we met them at 8:00 on saturdaymorning and took a taxi to the train station. there we asked around and locateda minibus. the bus made a couple of stops. one was to see a presentation aboutthe traditional medicines grown on the mountain and a chance to buy some ofthem. it probably would have been interesting if we understood chinese. ourguides gave us the general outline about what was said. the other stop was aquick lunch stop.there are two approaches to hua shan. [chinese proverb: “there is one roadand only one road to hua shan,” meaning that sometimes the hard way is the onlyway.] the west entrance involves 10 kilometers of walking on a road before youstart climbing. we went with the east entrance, where the bus brings you to thebase of a cable car that goes up to the 1500 meter north peak. our plan was towalk up to the north peak, then climb to the four other peaks the next day andtake the cable car down.we started the climb in the early afternoon. the path consists of stonesteps with rough chain link handrails in the narrowest areas (we wore ourbicycling gloves for hand protection). physically, it is more like climbing thesteps of a skyscraper than trails at home. however, the temperature was about 95degrees and there was not much shade. we brought lots of water, including somebottles that we froze and some gatorade that we got at the fancy departmentstore in downtown xian. there are plenty of refreshment stands along the waywhere you can buy bottled water, the chinese equivalent of gatorade, and otherdrinks or snacks at a premium price.we reached the north peak before 4:00 pm and rested at the hotel. our roomwas basic, but fortable and clean enough. because water is scarce on themountain, there were neither showers nor sinks available for washing. in thatsense the experience felt like camping, but we were sleeping in a big tent!after dinner at the hotel restaurant, we spent some time talking with ourguides. we were a bit surprised to find that they both think of japannegatively, but like the . it seems that japan’s wwii behavior in china hasnot been forgotten, and is emphasized in school.we saw a beautiful sunset and watched the sky bee resplendent withthousands of stars, including the milky way galaxy. this was the clearest skythat we have seen in china. the fresh air at hua shan is a treat!our guides had both been planning to get up at 4:00 am to watch thesunrise. fran and i made sleep a priority. we did happen to wake up a bit beforesunrise (our room faced east) and went outside to watch the sky bee ally, our guides missed the sunrise because they had stayed up latewatching the european soccer championships on the television in their roomthe plan for the day was to climb the other four peaks, but we reserved theright to shorten the route. the first part was a steep climb to middle the low north peak, all the others are at roughly __ meters. there werecrowds on the way to middle peak – mostly chinese hikers but we did see a fewother wai guo (foreigners) as well.we visited two taoist temples en route to middle peak. each one had analtar with incense