Mount Song Shaolin — Sanhuang Village & Lesser Forest Trails

The mountain trails and lesser-visited cliff paths of Mount Song beyond the main Shaolin Monastery complex, including the Sanhuang Village suspended walkway route through the secondary peak zone.

Mount Song — Songshan — is one of the Five Sacred Mountains of China (Zhongyue, the Central Peak) and the surrounding area is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site 'Historic Monuments of Dengfeng'. While the Shaolin Monastery on the mountain's northern slopes attracts the vast majority of visitors, the mountain's broader hiking trails are comparatively quiet and offer scenically superior experiences for those willing to walk.

The Sanhuang Village route is the most rewarding less-visited section. The trail begins at the Sanhuangzhai scenic area, south of the main Songshan axis, and climbs through a landscape of quartzite pinnacles and cliff-edge paths constructed as suspended walkways with metal railings bolted into sheer rock faces. The scenery on this route — vertical cliff walls, narrow gorge passages, and views east across the Henan plain — is unlike anything visible from the main Shaolin tourist circuit.

The main summit ridge connecting Taishi Mountain (1,492 m, the western peak) to Shaoshi Mountain (the eastern peak, site of the main Shaolin complex) can be walked in its entirety as a ridge traverse taking approximately 5–6 hours with appropriate fitness. The route passes through dwarf pine forest, past stone observation platforms, and near several small Daoist hermitage caves.

The Zhongyue Temple in Dengfeng City below the mountain — the principal Daoist temple dedicated to the Central Sacred Mountain — is worth combining with a mountain day.