Lantau Peak

Topography & Ascent

Lantau Peak, known locally as Fung Wong Shan (“Phoenix Mountain”), rises to 934 metres, the second-highest point in Hong Kong after Tai Mo Shan and the highest point on Lantau Island itself. The summit forms part of a ridge shared with a secondary high point rather than standing as an isolated cone, and it is most commonly climbed via Section 3 of the Lantau Trail. Hikers typically start from Pak Kung Au, a saddle reached by road, and ascend a steep run of uneven stone steps with almost no tree cover for shade — a demanding, fully exposed climb rather than a gentle nature walk, and one of the more physically serious short hikes accessible from Hong Kong’s urban core in under an hour.

Infrastructure & Connectivity

Getting to the trailhead depends on the MTR’s Tung Chung Line to its terminus at Tung Chung Station, from which New Lantau Bus routes 11 or 3M run to Pak Kung Au. An entirely separate approach exists via Ngong Ping 360, the 5.7-kilometre cable car linking Tung Chung to the Ngong Ping plateau near Po Lin Monastery — a route that bypasses the climb altogether and approaches the peak’s northern flank from a very different angle, more tourist infrastructure than hiking trailhead.

Environmental Context

The peak sits inside Lantau North Country Park, designated in 1978, on ground that is geologically volcanic — granite and rhyolite formations that support a comparatively sparse cover of low shrubs and acid-tolerant grasses rather than the denser woodland found lower on the island’s slopes. Lantau Island as a whole is a stronghold for Romer’s tree frog (Liuixalus romeri), a species endemic to Hong Kong first discovered on Lamma Island in 1952 by naturalist John Romer, thought extinct after its original cave site collapsed the following year, and rediscovered in 1984 — on Lamma Island, not Lantau, though subsequent surveys and a 1990s conservation-breeding programme following the Chek Lap Kok airport construction have since established populations across several sites on Lantau as well. Erosion management is a real, ongoing concern on the peak’s exposed upper slopes, where heavy hiker traffic on the stone-pitched steps has required repeated drainage and path-reinforcement work by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department to keep the thin volcanic soil from washing out entirely.

History & Lore

The peak’s lower slopes carry a stranger footnote than the mountain’s Buddhist associations might suggest: in 1947, British lawyer and colonial legislator Brook Bernacchi established a tea plantation near Ngong Ping, producing Hong Kong’s only commercially grown tea under the Lotus brand. The business failed to survive Hong Kong’s shift away from agriculture, and its terraces have since been reclaimed by woodland, with only scattered abandoned structures marking the site along one of the approach paths — a minor but genuine piece of the territory’s agricultural history hiding in plain sight beside its best-known religious landmark. The peak’s more visible modern tradition is pre-dawn hiking to watch sunrise from the summit, a popular enough practice among Hong Kong hikers that headlamp-lit ascents before daybreak are a routine sight on clear mornings, distinct from any organised Buddhist pilgrimage ritual tied to the mountain itself.

Local Taste

Hikers descending toward Ngong Ping typically eat at or near Po Lin Monastery, which runs a large vegetarian dining hall serving set meals to both worshippers and hikers — a rare instance in Hong Kong of a religious institution operating food service at genuine visitor scale, reflecting the monastery’s decades-long role as both an active place of worship and one of Lantau’s principal tourist draws.