Shaolin Temple III - Mountain

Up behind the temple is a large and very unusual set of mountains.  These protected the temple and provided refuge in case of conflict, but are also at a geographic cross-roads of different types of rocks, with very unusual patterns (today it's a geological park and scientific study area).

To reach the mountain, you can climb up the paths for a few hours, or take a gondola - here going up one of the hills

A zoom shot of a long pagoda from the gondola - maybe a mile away, on the steep hills on the far side of the valley

View back down the mountain of the temples

Yinan in the mountains

Steve & Yinan on the mountain

Old walkway with arches is falling apart, so we use the upper new concrete walkway.
We thought it just went around the corner, not knowing it goes about a mile around the mountains

A typical walkway, way up on the mountain side

Many dangerous rock falls along the way - love the signs - very direct!

Ouch !  Sign says please don't stop here.

Lunch on the mountain (Long zoom across the valley since we didn't make it there)

Yinan in front of massive mountain

Part of the geographic features here are to push up rocks as they collide, so the rocks look vertical

Here the rocks that used to be horizontal layers are pushed up 100% vertical by geographical forces

An idea of scale, with people on the walkways

Here is the mix of different types of rocks colliding - the top brown rock type 1 and the lower vertical white rocks

Another collision area- the brown left is pushing the right white up to vertical

One of the canyons - notice the Chinese bridge near the bottom in the back - that is big enough to drive a car across.
You walk along the left side on a metal walk-way, to the bridge, then cross to the right side

Boys hanging out in the rocks along the way

Postcard showing a mountain-top bridge we never got to

Yinan looking at the view