Beiwudang Mountain near Fangshan

The name is shared, and that is the first thing to clear up. The Wudang that most travellers know lies in Hubei; this one stands in Fangshan County, in Lüliang, in the middle section of the Lüliang range, and it is a separate mountain with a separate history. It is also called Zhenwu Mountain, and older texts call it Longwang, Dragon King Mountain. It is listed among the holy places of Daoism, and is counted one of Shanxi's Daoist sacred sites. Zhenwu is the Dark Warrior, the Daoist god of the north, whose name the mountain also carries; the northern prefix is the whole of the relation between the two Wudangs.

The scenic area is planned at 80 square kilometres and is made of 72 peaks, 36 cliffs and 24 gullies, with the main summit, Xianglu Peak, at 1,985 metres, and the mountain has long been called the first mountain of the three Jin. Daoist activity is recorded there in the Tang and Song. A stele of 1597, the twenty-fifth year of the Wanli reign, calls the place a great sight of the north. In 1724 and 1725 a beamless brick vault was built on the summit as the main hall; in 1758 repairs began and within two years five halls were completed, from the Dark Emperor temple to the Taihe Palace below; in 1849 the south gate of the golden summit was repaired and the name Wudang Shan was cut above it. In 1994 the mountain entered the national scenic area list.

The approach begins with five li of loess road and five li of sand, and then the stone stair starts: more than 1,400 steps cut into the mountain, with iron chains fixed at the steep places, so that from below the flight reads as a ladder set against the rock. It is the only way up; a single man-made trail reaches the misty top. The mountain is granite, weathered until the rock lies bare and the summit stands clear of everything around it. Pines grow out of the crevices, and among the named stones one, a block of several thousand kilos poised on a cliff edge, is said to move in the wind.