Luanchuan from Luoyang: Laojun Mountain, Chongdu Valley, Jiguan Cave and Yangzi Valley, 5 Days 4 Nights

We leave Luoyang at eight, take the Luoluan expressway and reach the county town in two and a half hours. After lunch we drive five kilometres east into Yangzi Valley, which is quiet and holds almost no groups. A concrete path follows the stream uphill between low wooded slopes, slow enough that the walking never tires. Halfway in, a glass bridge crosses the valley on a separate ticket, and beyond it stand the remains of an old stone stockade wall, moss over every joint. Back to the hotel in the evening.

Attraction introduction: Yangzi Valley lies five kilometres east of Luanchuan town and takes its name from a legend about a mother raising her son there. It preserves a stretch of original woodland, with the remains of a stockade wall, a maternal shrine and a glass bridge, the path following the stream at an easy gradient for about three hours on foot.

Tips: Phone signal comes and goes in the valley, so live streaming will not work. Guests generally find it suits the arrival day because turning back is always easy. In practice we save the strongest legs for Laojun Mountain and treat this as a warm up.

We enter at half past seven, ride the first cable car to the middle gate and change to the peak forest cable car for the summit. Steps continue above the top station, the last stretch almost vertical and the handrail always wet. On top the temples cluster on a single point of rock, the Laojun shrine, the Jade Emperor terrace and the treasure tower pressed together with cloud on every side. Lunch is a bowl of noodles up there, and the afternoon is spent moving between viewpoints, waiting for the cloud to break and then for the sun to go. At dusk the lamps come on and the summit turns yellow before we ride down.

Attraction introduction: Laojun Mountain is the main peak of the Funiu range, its summit temples first built under the Northern Wei and renamed in the Ming in honour of Laozi. The golden summit group runs along the ridge at about two thousand two hundred metres, among the few high altitude Daoist complexes in the central plains. The ticket holds two days, the first cable car costs one hundred and thirty return and the peak forest line eighty.

Tips: The first cable car stops taking passengers uphill at half past three, and a late arrival means a night at the foot. Guests generally find cloud gathers at dawn and after rain, while midday is often empty. In practice the itinerary keeps a second morning in reserve, so a blank first day can be tried again.

The same ticket takes us in again, this time away from the summit toward Dream Valley. The valley is a different mountain: more water, stones rounded by the current, a walkway following the stream with almost nobody on it. Halfway along, a fall drops over several rock steps. Lunch at the valley mouth, then a short drive to the base of the Ten Mile Gallery, where the walkway cuts across the hillside facing a row of stone peaks with wind moving through the gaps. Down to the county town by evening.

Attraction introduction: Dream Valley lies inside the Laojun Mountain park as a streamside gorge, on the opposite side from the summit temples and carrying more water than the main peak route. The Ten Mile Gallery is a peak forest landform where the path traverses the hillside at the level of the stone towers opposite. Both are covered by the park ticket, without cable cars.

Tips: Dream Valley runs mostly flat and gently graded, far easier than the summit. Guests generally find that coming here after the peak makes the pace drop all at once. In practice we use the day as recovery before the long walk at Chongdu Valley.

A forty minute drive reaches Chongdu Valley in the morning. The park has two gorges, and the south one, Jinji River, is walked first, a chain of falls all the way in: the Rainbow Falls stepping down in tiers, the Xiepen Cliff fall the biggest of them, loud enough that talk has to be shouted. Lunch is farm cooking in the valley, Luanchuan tofu and chicken soup the standard. The afternoon takes the west gorge, Dichui River, first into the Water Curtain cave and then up the bamboo corridor, dense enough to shut out the sky.

Attraction introduction: Chongdu Valley splits into the Jinji River and Dichui River gorges. The south holds the waterfall group, with the thousand year bodhi tree, Rainbow Falls and the Xiepen Cliff fall; the west is bamboo and shallows, with a natural cave, terraced pools that can be waded and a preserved farming village. Tickets and shuttle are priced as posted on the day.

Tips: Walking both gorges in one day adds up. Guests generally find the shuttle worth buying, since the valley is longer than it looks on the map. In practice the falls go in the morning for the light, and the bamboo in the afternoon, when it reads greener against the sun.

The morning goes to Jiguan Cave, its mouth halfway up the hill and a flight of steps down inside. The cave holds eighteen degrees all year, warmer than the November air, so the coat comes off at the entrance. The route is a loop of about eighteen hundred metres, stalagmites and stone curtains layered on both sides, the white flowstone lit so it looks frosted. At the far end a column runs floor to ceiling, too thick for two people to reach around. Lunch in town, then the road to Luoyang at two.

Attraction introduction: Jiguan Cave sits on Cockscomb Hill west of Luanchuan town and is one of the larger limestone caves in the north, with about eighteen hundred metres opened as a loop across several levels joined by corridors, at a constant eighteen degrees, the formations still slowly growing.

Tips: The floor is wet and the handrails are damp the whole way. Guests generally find no heavy clothing is needed inside and a long sleeved layer is enough, with the coat wanted again on the way out. In practice the cave fills the departure morning in ninety minutes and leaves the afternoon free for the drive.