By Johnmango
Copied from Fodors
What can I say? I live near the Canadian Rockies and the Huangshan is still awe-inspiring. There is no need to repeat information on Huangshan which one can get somewhere else; but here are some tips:
- Late April/early May appear to be the best time to visit because the mountain is dotted with mountain azaleas and wild rhododendrons.
- In May there is only one evening flight (Shanghai Airline) from Shanghai Putong Airport to Tunxi (Depart 21:30, arrive 22:30), which is the closest airport to Huangshan. Tunxi is about 1.5 hours from the Huangshan Cable Car so the best is to stay overnight in Tunxi.
- The cable cars start getting busy in the late morning. We left the Tunxi hotel at 7:30 a.m. and arrived at the Eastern cable cars at 9 a.m. and we did not have to wait. I heard that the wait could be up to 1-2 hours as the morning progresses. The same with coming down: if you arrive at the cable car station after ~11 a.m. expect a 1-2 hour wait.

- If you have bad knees it is better to stay on the east side of the peak, which is generally easier to hike than the west side of the mountain, where there are many steep steps to negotiate. It took us about ½ hour to hike from the White Goose Range Stop, the cable car station at the East side of the mountain, to the Beihai (North Sea) Hotel as the trails are relatively flat, but it took us about an hour to walk from the Beihai Hotel to the Bright Summit Peak, which is only about half-way to the cable car station, the Jade Screen Telpher Stop, on the west side of the mountain.

- If your knees really give out, there are sedans available, and price is negotiable but is ~200 rmb from the Beihai (North Sea) Hotel to the eastern White Goose Range Stop. Seeing how steep the west side is, I would not contemplate using a sedan for that part of the mountain. What about the sedan carriers slip while carrying you?!!

- Hotels have jackets for guests who want to get up around 4 a.m. to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately for us, it was raining so we could not see the sunrise through the thick mist.

- When we lined up to get the cable car tickets up and down the mountain, we were approached by people selling the same tickets. Not knowing if they are legitimate we declined and bought the tickets at the ticket counters. However on the way down, as there was a 1 hour wait for the cable car, a woman in uniform approached us while we were about to buy the tickets, telling us that there are VIP tickets, about 10 rmb more each, that enable us to bypass the waiting line. Since I saw her talking to the ticket agent a few minutes earlier, we said yes and she took us to a store a few steps away from the ticket booth, and asked us to have some tea and wait so she can get us the VIP tickets. A few minutes later she said that the ticket manager is away on breaks and asked us to wait a few more minutes. then she proceeded to show us some CD/DVDs of Huangshan, and souvenirs from the store, and that raised a red flag. We said that we would wait in line like everyone else ¨C if she succeeded in finding the manager and get us the VIP tickets, then she can come and get us since the wait now is about 1.5 hours. We waited in line eventually like everyone else and never saw her again. So it appears that the ticket agent knows her and I am not sure if they are in this together?!