CHINA 5A TRAVEL
The 'First Mountain East of Beijing' that Emperor Qianlong climbed 32 times, sighing 'Had I known of Mount Pan, why bother with the south' - pine-crowned upper slopes, weird rock mid-levels and singing streams below, an hour from Tianjin.
Mount Pan rises from the Yanshan range in Jizhou, northwest Tianjin, its main peak Guayuefeng standing 864 meters over a 106-square-kilometer scenic zone. Recorded since the Han dynasty and sacred since Tang times - when it was honored as the 'Eastern Wutai' Buddhist mountain - it earned the title 'First Mountain East of Beijing' under the Kangxi emperor, ranking alongside Mount Tai and West Lake among China's fifteen great名胜 of the early Republic.
The mountain's fame is imperial as much as natural: Qianlong visited 32 times between 1739 and 1797, wrote 1,702 poems about it, and built his Jingdi Mountain Villa in its folds. Today 224 stone inscriptions survive on its cliffs - half of them Qianlong's own brushwork - alongside ancient temples such as Tiansheng, Wansong and Yunzhao and the Dingguang Buddha relic pagoda on the summit ridge.
The classic beauty is the 'Three Levels of Pan': pine forest swirling on the upper slopes, grotesque boulders stacked at mid-mountain, and silver streams tumbling through the lower gorge - 'snow above, rain in the middle, slanting sun below' in the old poetic formula. Three cableways (Pan, Yunsong and Guayue) now lift visitors to the summit for the view over the Great Wall ridgelines toward Beijing.
Highlights
The Three Levels
The mountain's signature sequence - pines above, rocks between, water below - walked in one continuous ascent from the valley gate to the summit.
Guayuefeng & the relic pagoda
The 864-meter main peak crowned by the octagonal Dingguang pagoda; sunset and moon-rise views over five clustered peaks.
Qianlong's stone inscriptions
224 legible carvings including 118 imperial poems - the densest royal calligraphy collection on any Chinese mountain.
Wansong & Yunzhao temples
Working temples in the pine belt, survivors of the 72 monasteries that once made Pan the 'Eastern Wutai'.
Three cableways
The Guayue line lifts you near the summit for the five-peak panorama without the last hour of steps.
Sanpan Evening Rain
The classic vista of mist threading the three levels after rain - the scene named first among the old 'Eight Views of Jizhou'.
Photo Gallery
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