Huashan: a mountain made of edges

From Huayin, the mountain rises abruptly above the settled country of the Wei River basin. Broad fields and roads give way to an altogether different scale: pale rock walls, dark clefts and ridges narrow enough to make a path look like a line drawn on stone. Huashan stands on the northern side of the Qinling mountain country. Its southern summit rises to about 2,155 metres, while the lower ground to the north opens toward the river plain.

The contrast has a geological history. Research on the Huashan piedmont fault describes an uplifted mountain block south of the fault and loess tablelands and river deposits to its north. The rocks include granite and much older metamorphic formations. Fault movement, fractures, weathering and erosion have worked on different materials over a long time. The cliffs belong to that evolving landscape; a single age attached to the whole view would hide much of its history.

The five principal peaks are named for their positions: east, south, west, north and centre. Their other names make a second map. The East Peak is Chaoyang, facing the morning sun; the South Peak is Luoyan, associated with settling geese; the West Peak is Lianhua, the lotus. North is Yuntai, the cloud terrace, and the central peak is Yunu, the jade maiden.

The South Peak forms the highest part of the familiar summit group. The rounded, steep-sided West Peak suggests the folded mass of a lotus bud, while the North Peak occupies a lower position among surrounding heights. Seen together, the names turn bearings into memorable images. A visitor can read both the actual arrangement of ridges and the imaginative geography people have given them.

On a mountain of this shape, movement leaves visible marks. Steps are cut where a foot can gain purchase; chains and railings follow exposed sections; paths traverse a slope or turn back on themselves to gain height. The famous planked passage near the South Peak is one striking intervention in this terrain. Other stretches depend on stone stairs and narrow ridges. Each makes the relation between a human body and the mountain unusually apparent.

These paths have accumulated names, repairs and later visitor facilities. Their presence records sustained work: selecting a line, giving a step a usable depth, securing a support and returning to maintain it. Huashan's built passages are part of its cultural landscape, as well as a way of moving through the rock.

Huashan is the Western Peak among China's Five Sacred Mountains. Its religious geography reaches from places at the foot of the mountain, including Yuquan Yuan and Xiyue Temple, to shrines and retreats higher up. Imperial worship and Daoist cultivation gave different meanings to the same mountain. A temple courtyard, a retreat and a summit path each offered a different way of inhabiting its slopes.

One of the people remembered here is Chen Tuan, the recluse whose encounters with rulers are told in the History of Song. Another Huashan story puts him at a chessboard opposite the future founder of the Song dynasty. The companion articles follow the scholar's life and the complete folktale separately. Between them, Huashan becomes a place of rock, cultivated retreat and stories carried from one generation to the next.