China Post #6 DaHeiShan

So on Sunday we headed up Big Black Mountain BBM. The weather was quite different from Saturday when we wore t-shirts some of the time. Very cloudy at the start of the day and the rain started right when we left the car. There are supposed to be 3 ways up BBM, one which is mostly stairs, another that is a road and has a shuttle service ad the third we know nothing about nor do the people we talked to about it. Anyway, our outing probably ended up being a bit faster than it would have been in nicer weather because we did not want to stop and look around with the rain. The trail started out in a narrow canyon that even had some snow in the bottom of it still. There was this wall built across the canyon not too far up.

There were several temple built along the trail as well as a handful of trees that people tied these red strips of cloth to. The blue sign to the guys left is probably something along the lines of "beware: steep steeps ahead"
Since just past this tree the trail went up a flight of steps steeper than these switch backs leading up to it.
Here are Dylan and I at the entrance to the temple.
and Linda next to a Buddha inside the temple grounds.
and a few statues just outside of the temple.
From the temple you can head up a road to some communication towers at the actual top of the BBM. The road takes you up to a flat area where there is a tram like the one in Albuquerque but it is not running and it only goes to a lower set of towers. A little further along is what from a distance looked like a steep scree shoot, but on closer view was a very steep staircase. Here is Linda trudging up the steps into the clouds.
At this point it was pretty cold and we were all pretty wet. The wind picked up as well as the clouds getting more dense. We did not stick around on top, Dylan was pretty unhappy with the wind and there was nothing to see with cloud cover. We headed down as quickly as we could and once we made it down to the temple we opted to take the shuttle the rest of the way down since Dylan was still unhappy. Once we got down it took awhile to explain to the driver we were using where exactly we were. While we waited I wandered a little staying near the road so we would not miss him. There was a field close by with some trees blossoming that were quite pretty.
Here is a little clip of a construction zone in China. I'm sure that it will look pretty nice when it is done. Not only are the workers just right there on the highway but there is also a pedestrian just walking along on the side, but still in the left lane.