Mount Tai (Taishan) is not the tallest of China's Five Sacred Mountains, but it is by some distance the most revered. Rising 1,545 metres from the plains of central Shandong, it has been a place of imperial pilgrimage, Daoist devotion, and poetic inspiration for so long that the climb itself has the quality of a ritual: you join a slow column of pilgrims, students, and tourists making the same journey countless others have made before.
The classic route is the 7,200-step staircase that begins at the Red Gate at the base of the mountain and climbs through pine and cedar forest, past temples and inscriptions cut into the rock, to the summit. Allow three to five hours up at a steady pace, and another two down — or take the bus to the Midway Gate and the cable car the last stretch, which is what most domestic visitors now do. Bring water, snacks, a torch if you intend to walk up overnight for the sunrise, and warm clothing for the top, where it can be twenty degrees cooler than the base.
The mountain is open day and night and is best experienced overnight — start walking around midnight, reach the summit before dawn, watch the sun come up over the sea of clouds, and walk or cable-car down through the morning. The famous sunrise is genuinely impressive in clear weather, less so in haze; check the forecast.