Time reference: Only counting the hiking uphill time, the total time is 3.5 hours. The whole journey takes 10.5 hours. Starting from Datong South Station at 10 am, and only returning to the urban area at 8:30 pm.
Route reference. Purple is the uphill route, yellow is the downhill route, and the latter half is the original route back. 1 is the official entrance to the scenic area. From here, take a shuttle bus up the mountain to the mountainside. 2 is the shuttle bus route, all of which are winding mountain roads, 6 kilometers long. 3 is the walking uphill route. 4 is the walking to the summit route. There are extremely many people on this section, and it is extremely crowded.
Friends taking the Route 901 can get off at the terminal Hunyuan Bus Station. After crossing the road is the Liuhe parking lot. There is a shuttle bus ticket office in the parking lot. During the National Day holiday, you can only take a shuttle bus to the entrance of Hengshan Mountain scenic area. (The parking lot at the Hengshan tourist center is the same. Take a shuttle bus up.)
After reaching the scenic area entrance, there will be many signs. You will see a downhill. Follow the large flow of people and go down. You can see the sign in Figure 4 and go up the stairs.
After going up the stairs, it is a large platform. Continue walking forward. You can see the sign in Figure 5 on the stairs and continue going up.
Pass through the building and suddenly it becomes open. Walk towards the red circle in Figure 6. That is the entrance for checking tickets for the scenic area and the queue entrance for the shuttle bus to the mountainside.
Figures 7 and 8. Some scenic area time precautions ⚠️
Hello, tourists! At 7:30 in the evening, there are no staff members in the scenic area.
After getting off at the mountainside, you can see the building in Figure 9. There is a supermarket and a fast food restaurant inside. The supermarket can store luggage! As shown in Figure 10, for friends who brought luggage and didn’t have time to store it, you can come here! In addition, if you don’t have enough water, be sure to buy it here because a bottle of mineral water on the top of the mountain costs 10 yuan. There are only two not very formal uncles selling it.
After doing all this, you can finally start hiking officially. If you start climbing in the afternoon like me, then strongly recommend that you don’t wear too thick clothes considering the local temperature. A single layer plus a windbreaker is enough. Because the first one-third of the road is very, very sunny, without any shade and very hot, as shown in Figure 11.
Figure 12. A relatively shady section in the middle of the hike, and there are not many people.
Figure 13. The first sign encountered after starting to hike. Next to it is the only relatively large supply place on the climbing road. Purple is the uphill route. When going uphill, just follow the direction of the building marked in the circled area. Note ⚠️. During the National Day holiday, you can only climb to the top of Hengshan Mountain from Huixian Mansion, that is, the purple star. The first half of the downhill route from the top is not the same as the uphill route. Just follow the large flow of people.
Figure 14. Time precautions for the summit route.
Figure 15. Starting from this gate, people are blocked all the way to the top. Without taking any breaks, it takes about 40 minutes to reach the top. The reason for the congestion is that the road is narrow, there are many people, some elderly and children walk slowly, and some people sit on the already narrow steps to rest and block the way.
Figure 16. On the downhill route, you will see the cableway from afar. Don’t worry. Keep walking boldly. You don’t have to go down only by taking the cableway. You can also go down on foot.
Figure 17. When you walk here, be sure to follow the blue arrow marked and pass through the pavilion!! Don’t ask the security guard. That uncle can’t give clear directions.