World Travel Stories

Category: iconic mountains

  • Vihren

    Mt. Vihren, Pirin mountains, Bulgaria, visited July 2021.

    Mt. Vihren (2914 m) is the highest mountain in Pirin National Park in Bulgaria, and the third highest peak of the balkans, after Mt. Mussala (close in Rila NP) and Mt. Olympus (Greece)

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    The peak is very accessible and easy to climb from the Vihren hut using the classical south face route (aka the Royal route).  Other routes exist that are more challenging , via North face or narrow rims (like Premkata and Koncheta)…

    The peak is entirely Marble rock.

     

    The picture shows the North face as seen from the “big cauldron”.

     

  • Mt. Kailash (Kailas)

    Mt. Kailash (6714 m) is one of the most sacred places of Tibet.  It is a holy place for Buddhists, Hindus and Jains.  To Tibetans it means ‘the pillar of heaven’, to Hindus it is the place where Shiva resides.  All of the pilgrims, which come still nowadays in great numbers, make a ‘kora’ (a walk around the mountain), which has the auspicious effect of ‘cleansing the sins of a lifetime’ (13 times or even 108 times are even more auspicious…).  Along the kora are several monasteries, caves, buddha footprints, chörtens, sky burial sites, ‘sin-testing stones’, etc… The highest point is Drölma-la (5630m), a pass with an abundance of prayer flags.   Pilgrims often do the kora in one (very long) day – a Westerner will need at least three days. Staying overnight in one of the ‘guesthouses’ attached to the monasteries is possible, although a lot of people do camp.  It is forbidden to climb the mountain, something which has not been done till now. Trekking around the mountain is possible from mid-May till mid-October.

    Mt. Kailash, North Face
    On the Kailash kora...

     

  • Mt. Emei (Emei-shan)

    Emei means in Chinese ‘the eyebrows of Buddha’.  One says you can see the ‘halo of Buddha’ in the clouds when standing on the top and the light is dim enough.  Along the way to the summit (many many steep stairs) there are macaw monkeys, which will grab everything and can be quite agressive.  There are different monasteries, temples, sacred caves, … and tea houses(!) on the mountain – you can stay overnight in a monastery which is an authentic experience.  On the ‘golden summit‘ (3077 m) is a monastery and many ropes with padlocks attached by visitors. You can go up by bus most of the mountain and then continue to the top by cable car.  If you want to go all the way on foot, count on one long day (13 hours or more) starting from Baoguo Temple (551 m) near Emei-town.  Another alternative is to have yourself carried all the way up in a bamboo chair (yes, some people really do this !).

    Mt. Emei On the summit of Emei-shan

  • Climbing the Lion’s Head

    CAPE TOWN, OCTOBER 2000 – Table Mountain dominates the city of Cape Town.  Every day – when the weather allows it – people go up the mountain by cable car or hike to the top.  The sights on top of this mountain are really spectacular – one can see the city, Robben Island, the ocean,… and a lot of other mountain peaks nearby.  One of the lower peaks one can determine is ‘Lion’s Head’.  This is the one I climbed in an attempt to see table mountain in a different way.
    The Lion's Head

    Climbing this peak is not technically difficult, but the path is not what one would call ‘easy’.  One has to walk mainly on a small path between the rocks – their are a couple of small ladders and even some chains (but you can avoid these last mentioned by taking a slightly larger route).
    After an hour and a half walking, you reach the top and can enioy the beauty and silence of Table Mountain, The Twelve Apostles, Devils’ Peak, Chapmans bay, etc… We sat their for about an hour enjoying the views.  We saw the ‘crowds’ going up Table Mounting by cable car, the traffic down in the city – we were high above all this – untouchable in a sense.  Down there, lived also the people struggling for their daily survival, homeless people sitting next to the road at night as we had seen the night before, but also the ‘South-African jetset’, the business people who had made it in this western style city.
    The Twelve Apostles
    Time to get down again, back into the crowd, into ‘real life’.  Going down, we could see the clouds coming in from the ocean, trying to crawl up onto Table Mountain, in a desperate attempt to form the so-called ‘Table cloth’.  At one moment we saw the rock before us disappear into the mist of the coming clouds.  Five minutes ago their was no cloud, now we were in the mist – just to remind us how quickly things can change.

     

  • Climbing Mt. Sinai

    DAHAB – SINAI, OCTOBER 2004 – We were staying for 5 days in Dahab in Sinai, on the Red Sea coast.  From Dahab I made a trip to Sinai mountain, which is an hour or so away, and climbed this holy mountain… at night !The reason many people climb this mountain at night is obviously to see the sunrise at the top, which is, I must admit, absolutely stunning.  Some people tend to forget that it gets cold at night in the desert of Egypt, especially on top of a mountain.

    Mount Sinai (2285 m)
    The stairs on mount Sinai
    Our trip started at the hotel at 23:30, I had taken a short nap before I went to diner, so we went shortly after diner, already in complete darkness, on the road with the small bus that would bring us to the base of the mountain.  The temperature was a pleasant 27 degrees Celsius.  When we arrived at the parking lot near the Saint-Catherine monastery, we started walking the ‘camel route’, which is the easiest way to get on top of the mountain.  There exists also ‘stairs’, some 3000 of them, which is not only the shortest route but obviously the strenous route and at night a little bit dangerous route.  After escaping from the camels – obviously someone taking the camel route wants a camel …? – we arrived after an hour or two at a small tea house nearly on the top, we drank a tea and ate a sandwich, and were ready to go the last part – here you have to take the last part of the stairs route, which took another half hour.  We were the first persons on the top this night, so we had a good spot to sit behind a rock, protected from the wind, and I started to get dressed for the night, which means get out the gloves, woolen hat and down jacket out of my bag… The temperature : near to zero degrees Celsius.  It was a clear night, and it was so quiet up here – till the masses arrived… it was getting soon too crowdy to stand and more and more people were hiring blankets from the bedouins, some people were only dressed in T-shirts , shorts and slippers…
    Sunrise
    Sinai mountains

    The wait till sunset was still a couple of hours, but the spectacle during the last half hour when the sun slowly came from behind the mountains was spectacular.  After the last stars were gone, the mountain silhouets were becoming visible, but only faintly – it took still quite some time till the sun was appearing, first as a tiny dot , then in all its grandeur and brightness.  The mountains were coloured in red all over now and only at this moment one could see how fantastic this point was we were standing…  Most people hurried down immediately, I stayed a while to enjoy the feeling, and to go to the worst bathroom of my life on top of Mt. Sinai (highly not recommended).

    Saint Catherine Monastery
    Saint-Catherine Monastery

    The road down was easy and no problem at all for me with the hiking boots, the ‘hikers with the slippers’ had more problems.  And it is getting hot very soon ! When we arrived at the parking lot again, we waited to be allowed inside the Saint-Catherine monastery, which is an orthodox monastery and has a nice collection of old icons – too bad the monks don’t allow you to look carefully and the lighting is really bad inside.  Also inside is the burning bushes that Mozes encountered.
    A great way to end the climb of a holy mountain.
    By the way, after you have visited the monastery, there are some cafés around, so relax, have a drink and wait till your bus arrives.  Another refreshing experience.