The Huangshan Mountains in China are famous for their steep granite ridges, bonsai-like trees, and cloud formations. They are among the most beautiful mountains I have seen in my travels around the world.
My wife and I visited these mountains mostly because I have long admired traditional Chinese landscape paintings. These paintings often used layers of landscape, such as mountain ridges, to help achieve the illusion of three-dimensional depth. Many of these landscape paintings were inspired by the Huangshan Mountains.
My wife and I hiked among these mountains for three days, staying overnight at hotels on ridge tops. One evening, I went up to a summit with viewpoints in several directions.
While most people go to a viewpoint looking west to watch the setting sun, I stopped at a viewpoint looking south to capture this image. The last light of the setting sun touched the summits of these two peaks as clouds swirled around their base and over the surrounding foothills.
