Rear Mountain Trails

Qingcheng Hou Shan, the rear mountain, offers around 80 kilometres of hiking trails through terrain that is dramatically different from the well-maintained front-mountain circuit. Where the front mountain is polished, the rear mountain is raw: bamboo groves giving way to old-growth forest, small waterfalls and rocky streams, and occasional isolated hermitages that predating the tourist infrastructure by centuries.

The main route takes four to six hours one way and can be done as a through-hike from the rear mountain entrance to the front, though most visitors who come this way take the cable car on one leg. Accommodation exists at the Taoist hermitage at Qingcheng Hou Shan, allowing an overnight stay that puts you on the trails before the day-hikers arrive. The fog and mist that the Taoists considered the mountain's defining characteristic — conceal and reveal — is most atmospheric here, early on wet-season mornings.

things to do sight
A story
The rear mountain received far less temple construction than the front because it was considered wilder and less suitable for formal religious practice. It consequently survived the twentieth century's demolitions and renovations far better — the forest here is older, the terrain more rugged, and the sense of walking through a genuinely ancient landscape much stronger.