Mount Emei is one of China's four sacred Buddhist mountains — the bodhimanda of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra — and a UNESCO natural and cultural site shared with the Leshan Giant Buddha at its foot. Expect misty stairways, some two dozen working temples, a summit plateau of gilded statuary above a sea of clouds, and the mountain's most notorious residents: bold, food-savvy macaques. The climb runs from subtropical forest at the base to wind-scoured near-3,100-meter heights, and the weather changes with every thousand meters.
