Luoyang 4-Day Tour: Hukou Waterfall & Yan'an

Leave Luoyang Longmen in the morning, change at Xian North and reach Yanan just after two. Drop the bags at the hotel, where the window looks onto loess slopes cut into flat terraces. At four, walk up Baota Hill, forty minutes on foot or a shuttle to the halfway point. The nine-storey brick pagoda is the mark of the city; brick reliefs ring every level, and from the top the Yan River and the whole town spread out below.

Attraction introduction: Baota Hill stands east of Yanan with the Yan River at its foot. The pagoda was first raised in the Tang and rebuilt in the Ming, nine storeys and eight sides, about forty-four metres tall. A Confucian academy once stood below it, and Fan Zhongyan left inscriptions here while stationed in the region. Carved inscriptions from later officials remain on the cliff face.

Tips: The summit is windy and November needs an extra layer. Guests generally find the light best after four and the city lights worth waiting for. In practice the first day stays inside the town, since the next day covers long distances, so sleep early.

Reach the Yanan Revolutionary Museum at half past eight. The halls run in chronological order from the arrival in northern Shaanxi to the crossing of the Yellow River, objects set beside photographs. Then Yangjialing, where the arched doors of the central auditorium are original and the cave dwellings step up the slope, a stone table outside the door where meetings were held. Eat a bowl of mutton noodles in town, leave at half past twelve for Ganquan and enter the canyon at half past one.

Attraction introduction: Ganquan Canyon lies at Xiasiwan in Ganquan County, known locally as Yucha. Floodwater cut the channel through sandstone beneath the loess, leaving walls a dozen metres high and only two or three metres apart, their faces scoured into ripples and banded from ochre to sand yellow. Nothing grows inside to shade the floor, so the colour only appears when light falls through the opening above.

Tips: The floor is wet clay, so wear boots you do not mind ruining. Guests generally find the shafts of light only appear around midday, with early and late visits like walking into a dirt tunnel. In practice we time entry for half past one, since the park stops admitting at three.

Leave Yichuan at eight and reach Hukou in a little over an hour. The sound arrives before the water, like a train running somewhere out of sight. At the Shaanxi platform the river is squeezed between rock walls into a few dozen metres and the whole surface tips over, spray rising far enough to wet a lens. At half past ten cross the Yellow River bridge to the Shanxi side, where the viewpoint sits closer to the main fall and the noise presses against your chest. Eat Yellow River carp in Jixian at noon.

Attraction introduction: Hukou is the only yellow waterfall on the main stem of the Yellow River, with Shaanxi on the west bank and Shanxi on the east. The bed narrows sharply here and the drop is concentrated in one place, the water falling into a trough more than thirty metres deep that locals call the ten-li dragon trough. In winter ice columns hang along both sides of the fall.

Tips: Spray covers the platforms, so bag the phone and wear something waterproof yourself. Guests generally find Shanxi more overwhelming but wetter, and Shaanxi better for a wide frame. In practice we do both banks in one pass rather than shuttling back and forth.

Leave Yichuan in the morning and reach Yanan in two and a half hours, passing the Nanniwan country where November leaves only dry grass and the terrace lines stand out sharper for it. With time in hand, walk half an hour in Zaoyuan, where the cave dwellings and auditorium survive and the trees are thicker than downtown. Eat a northern Shaanxi lunch of grated potato with millet porridge, then take the two o clock train back through Xian North.

Attraction introduction: Zaoyuan sits northwest of Yanan, once a warlord estate and from 1944 the seat of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. The cave residences, the central auditorium and the small hall remain, and many of the trees were planted in that period. Nanniwan lies southeast of the city, reclaimed from 1941 by a brigade that turned gullies into paddies.

Tips: Do not schedule anything uphill on departure day, since the wind drains you quickly. Guests generally find trains from Yanan to Xian North frequent and forty minutes enough to change. In practice we set departure at two, with a later service as backup.