Nanyue Hengshan in Hunan is the southernmost of China's Five Great Mountains — a green, temple-stitched ridge whose highest point, Zhurong Peak, tops out around 1,300 meters. Unlike its craggier northern siblings, Hengshan is soft-edged and perpetually verdant, "the most graceful of the five" in the poets' verdict. It is also the most devout: Buddhists and Taoists have shared its slopes for well over a thousand years, and on festival days the stairways fill with pilgrims climbing from the great temple at the foot to the fire-god shrine on the summit.
