Changbai Waterfall

Went up the north slope of Changbaishan, and the waterfall ended up being the last stop on the whole route — also the one that wore me out the most, though not for the reason I expected. The path up is a wooden boardwalk the whole way. About fifteen minutes in you pass through a geothermal area, Julong hot spring, nice colour but if you've already seen Tengchong it won't feel especially new. After that the path runs alongside a stream for a while, then climbs again until you reach the viewing platform. Took about forty minutes total. You're still pretty far from the actual waterfall from up there though, so it's a look-but-don't-get-close kind of view. Reminded me a bit of that Iceland waterfall from the show Call Me By Fire, actually, same sort of feeling. What actually got me wasn't the walk, it was the two hundred and six steps up to the viewing point. I'd been carsick on the ride up already, so I was moving on autopilot, just following whoever was in front of me, stopping when they stopped. Didn't register how narrow the steps were until I was coming back down, and by the time I reached the bottom my legs were shaking. We went up before 8am, which worked out well — there's a rice festival on right now pulling a lot of the crowd toward Tianchi instead, so the waterfall side was quieter than I expected. Caught the morning light hitting the falls at one point and it threw this faint rainbow shimmer across the water for a few minutes, which none of my photos really did justice to. The usual route is shuttle bus to the Tianchi stop, then about 800 metres on foot from there. If the weather's cooperating, go up to Tianchi first and work your way down afterward — Tianchi, then the waterfall, then Xiaotianchi, then Lüyuantan, then the valley forest, all on the same line so you're just descending through them one by one. Xiaotianchi and Lüyuantan get called a mini Jiuzhaigou a lot. I'm from Sichuan though, so after the real one, these felt pretty ordinary to me. Seeing Tianchi itself was really the whole trip for me, everything after was just extra. Few things worth knowing before you go. There are hot spring eggs sold near the bottom of the falls, ten yuan for three, and they're genuinely good, different texture to a normal boiled egg. The basalt rock formations around the waterfall and the hot spring cluster are worth slowing down for too. Bring something windproof and waterproof, since the weather up there shifts fast, and wear shoes with actual grip because the boardwalk gets wet. And wear sunscreen. I mean actually reapply it. The UV up there does not play around.