First thing in the morning, I took an hour and a half taxi for 185¥ and ended up at a town near Huangshan Mountain. I met a Chinese national named Allen who became my travel companion. We took a bus to get inside where the driver was basically whipping us around hairpin turns for 20 mins. That cost 20¥. Getting inside the park and a gondola ticket was another 310¥. The gondola ride was unlike anything I had ever seen. That alone would have been worth the 330¥.
This pic reminds me of Jurassic Park
Because I left my old lodgings behind, I took my suitcase with me. This turned into quite the hassle when hiking the mountainous trails of Huangshan. Eventually we made it to a hotel where Allen had a reservation and he booked one for me as well. The amount of stress that took off my shoulders was immaculate. He even paid the 300¥ for the room for me and tole me to send him money over PayPal when I got back to the states. He did this because he's an amazing human being and he wanted to make sure I had enough cash to last me the rest of the trip. Seriously Allen was a Godsend. Once my hotel was booked, Allen bounced. I left the heavy pieces of my luggage in my hotel room and headed out to see some of the Hunagshan Mountains.
I started maybe around 2pm and went along the Xihai Grand Canyon. It seriously makes the US Grand Canyon look like child's play. Not in size, the US still has that one, but in sheer, stunning beauty. Absolutely magical. Several times I launched my drone to get some areal shots of the canyon. There was a lot of interference due to the massive rocks in the area (or so I think), so flying it was not the easiest task. Some of the cement walkways were hugging the side of the mountain, as were most of the hikers. You would see the walkways coming up and notice there was nothing supporting them from underneath. Luckily there were railings and the cement was sturdy. However if the cement failed or someone fell, it would be an utter miracle if they came out alive. No risk no reward.
Everyone was fascinated with my drone and loved watching me fly it. The shadows of the mountains and the bright sky made for a really high contrast scenario so I'm interested in seeing how the footage turned out. My DJI Phantom 3 Standard doesn't shoot video in RAW, so I'm curious to see how much I'll be able to push or pull the footage. Enough camera nerd stuff. Unless you want to hear more, then tell me!
At the bottom of the Xihai Grand Canyon, there was a tram that ran up the mountain so you didn't have to hike all the way back. Sure it was 100¥ but that is pocket change compared to the amount of effort hiking would have taken. By this time is was probably around 6:15pm and spending another 3 hours hiking didn't sound fun. Got to the top and it states to rain. Luckily Allen was very generous and bought me a poncho earlier on in the day. It probably took me an hour to hike with all my gear in the rain back to my hotel.
Ate some extremely overpriced food and drank mediocre overpriced beer before sitting down and editing. Allen came by my room and gave me a free breakfast coupon (seriously what an amazing guy) and then left. Sadly I never saw him again. I was going to post on my blog/Instagram but the wifi there was so slow I couldn't even load a webpage. So instead I watched The Newsroom on my laptop and went to bed exhausted.
