Huang Shan

Huangshan's granite peaks, rising out of seas of cloud that pool in the valleys most mornings, are the single most reproduced landscape in Chinese ink painting — for centuries, artists didn't need to travel here to paint it, because generations of painters before them had already established Huangshan's pines, mist, and vertical rock as a kind of visual shorthand for the sublime in Chinese art. Seeing the real thing means recognizing a landscape you've likely encountered in painting or photography long before setting foot on the mountain.

The mountain's pine trees are as much the subject as the peaks themselves — gnarled, wind-bent specimens clinging to bare rock faces, some individually named and centuries old, having adapted to grow with almost no soil. Cable cars now reach most of the major viewing areas, but the historic stone staircases carved directly into the cliff faces are still in use and are how most of the mountain was traversed for the better part of a thousand years. At the mountain's base, the Tangyue Memorial Archways — seven stone arches spanning the Ming and Qing dynasties, built by the wealthy Bao merchant family to honor loyalty, filial piety, chastity, and charity — are a rare complete set of Confucian commemorative architecture in one unbroken row.

Huangshan is a genuine multi-day undertaking rather than a day trip: most visitors stay overnight at one of the summit-area hotels specifically to catch sunrise over the cloud sea, which rarely appears the same way twice. March through November covers the mountain's open season, though the cloud-sea phenomenon is most reliable in spring and after rain, and warm layers are worth packing even in summer given the elevation.