Hiking in the clouds

My friend from Toronto and her sister flew in for a visit a few days before New Year, and together we hiked up the Ngong Ping 360 Rescue Trail towards Ngong Ping Village.

This trail follows the cable car path for most of the way and I could hear the excited visitors inside their cabins as they passed overhead. The view of the Chek Lap Kok international airport was pretty nice from up here.

The steep rocky steps of the Ngong Ping 360 Rescue Trail (Photo: CharK)

The cable cars were about 80% full even on this foggy day (Photo: CharK)

One of the hardest part of the trail was the steep stair climb up towards the lower cable car stop (Photo: CharK)

I've never hiked in the winter before and since the day was a bit foggy, I felt like walking through clouds during parts of the hike. Usually I can see the surrounding islands from the mountain but the foggy weather made the view into a different isolate world. My friend described it as being like "Lord of the Rings". Being a rescue trail meant it's a nicely paved path. But some of the wooden planks were quite slippery. In fact some of the other hikers we saw had to pull each up to keep from falling down. 

I loved hiking through this foggy mist. There was actually sign warning "beware of very steep trail ahead" (Photo: Chark)

 It was a very strange feeling to feel sweaty and cold at the same time because the temperature was below 12 degrees Celsius near the peak. But we finally made it to the Ngong Ping Village right before sunset. I was so happy that I was able to catch a glimpse of the Tian Tan Buddha even in this fog.

The Buddha and Po Lin Monastery off in the distance (Photo: CharK)

 It was a very strange feeling to feel sweaty and cold at the same time because the temperature was I was suprised to find the Ngong Ping Village was closed so early in the evening. It was about 6pm when we got there and pretty much all the shops and restaurants were closing. The only place still opened was Starbucks. So we picked up some drinks and walked around briefly before heading back down to Tung Chung. 

So this hike was my pre-New Year resolution to to exercise more and turned out pretty successful...Now I can check off of Lantau Island as another hiking destination!

~Happy New Year~