Hiking in Taiwan by Brent Hannon

Taiwan is a magic word. Just say the word “Taiwan” and images pour forth like genies from a bottle. But the images are not the stuff of tourism bureau dreams and vacation magic. Instead people think of traffic jams and crowded streets and churning factories. Clearly, the island has an image problem.

Some of this is bad luck. Most visitors land at drab CKS Airport and drive to Taipei, where they spend a few days under the city’s frequent gray haze. When they do venture off the beaten path, they visit smaller facsimiles of Taipei like Hsinchu, or Taichung, or, heaven help them, Kaohsiung, a city that rivals the darkest corners of the globe for sheer esthetic insult.

But Taipei and the industrial west coast are only a small part of Taiwan. The rest of the island is covered with remote and beautiful mountains, which are laced with hundreds of hiking trails. These are the emerald peaks that visitors see from their plane windows, just before they descend into a factory city on the west coast.

Taiwan is home to the highest mountain in east Asia - at 3,952 meters Yushan (Jade mountain), is taller than Japan’s Mt. Fuji - while dozens of peaks soar above 3,000 meters. Protected by national parks, and home to black bears, salmon, rare birds and other wildlife, the mountains are Taiwan’s most compelling attraction.

Trekking in Taiwan is not for the faint-hearted. The Central Mountain Range is steep and wild, and much of it is covered with thick forest. Summer thunderstorms rise unseen, temperatures can drop below zero, and facilities are few and far between. But for those willing to carry their own gear, the treks are among the most beautiful in Asia.

The top hikes in Taiwan - Chilai Ridge and Yushan - require a reasonable level of fitness and the proper equipment, which includes a tent and stove, food and water, a sleeping bag, good boots, and warm clothes.

Yushan is the most popular trek in the country. The trail starts near the top of the new central cross-island highway (#18), and winds steadily upward through magnificent forests of cypress, fir and hemlock. The first day’s walk is a long one - six hours and 1,000 vertical meters to Paiyun cottage, two hours below the summit. Fellow hikers are plentiful, and friendly cries of jia you (it literally means add gas) echo through the hills.

Most trekkers spend the night in or near Paiyun cottage, and leave before daylight to catch the sunrise from the summit. The final ascent is steep but scenic, as the glowing rays of incipient dawn light up the surrounding mountains. And the view from the top is tremendous — a sea of clouds pierced by the peaks of the central range.

Some hikers spend days in Yushan park, exploring the area and climbing smaller satellite mountains. An alternative route down - or up - proceeds from Yushan to Tungpu, a Bunun aboriginal village that doubles as a hot springs resort town. The Bununs, called the Sherpas of Taiwan, can be hired as guides.

To really get away from it all, try the Chilai Ridge trail, a rugged walk straight down the mountainous spine of Taiwan. The trail begins at Ho Huan Shan hostel, on the northern cross-island highway (#14) about 60 kilometers from Puli.

From the hostel, it takes four hours and a lot of legwork to reach the 3,200-meter summit of Chilai Ridge. The ridge trail then proceeds due south, over a succession of rocky outcrops that is regarded as the most dangerous trekking walk in Taiwan, but one that is unrivalled in beauty. In some places the ridge is sharp as a knife, with cliffs on either side, and it is composed of leaves of shale that crumble underfoot like rotten cake.

The coastal haze often creeps up the foothills toward the ridge, a foul fog on little cat feet. But it never seems to reach the sun-drenched summit. Chilai is far removed from everything coastal, everything low, everything industrial and loud. Chilai Ridge is not the Taiwan that most people know.

The second night is spent camping atop the ridge, cooking dinner and admiring the view. To the north looms the famous rock spike of Tapachienshan, and far to the south is Yushan. Below and to the east are the twinkling lights of Hualien, and in the west is the glow of the setting sun.

Mornings tend to dawn bright and clear in the mountains, while afternoons often bring rain, a weather pattern that compels hikers to start early, and pitch their tents before bad weather sets it.

It’s a long hike down from Chilai Ridge, through bamboo forests and the tiny aboriginal settlement of Tianshih, which is followed by a 10-kilometer trail to a logging road that leads to the town of Lushan. It’s important to be met at the trail head, otherwise it’s a daunting walk down the road to Lushan. The Chilai Ridge hike takes three days and three nights, and like Yushan, hikers have to carry all their supplies, including water, tents and food.

Yushan and Chilai Ridge are just two of Taiwan’s many treks. Similar two- to four-day walks will take hikers to the summits of Tapachienshan, Nengkaoshan, and Hsuehshan (Snow Mountain), among others. For detailed information, call the Taiwan Tourism Bureau Hotline for information: (8862) 2717-3737. Be sure to ask about current conditions; typhoons and earthquakes can close roads and trails.

SIDEBAR: HIKING IN YANGMINGSHAN It is not as wild or dramatic as Taiwan’s other mountain getaways, but Yangmingshan National Park has one great advantage: it is right on the doorstep of Taipei. That means a day hike in Yangmingshan can end with a hot dinner and a cold drink in the leafy suburb of Tienmu, rather than in a windswept tent at 3,000 meters.

Unlike the sedimentary shale and limestone of the Central Mountain Range, Yangmingshan is volcanic, and its trails feature extinct craters, bubbling fumaroles, flat green meadows, and thick wet forests of oak, persimmon, maple and sugar palm.

The steep one-hour hike from Yangmingshan highway to the top of Chihsingshan (Seven Star Mountain) penetrates a dark bamboo forest before emerging atop the 1,220-meter mountain. From the summit, much of Taipei is on display, and on a clear day the distant sea is visible. One of the routes down from Chihsingshan leads to Matsao Hot Springs, a huge steaming sulfur pit lined with bubbling pools where locals like to boil eggs.

A longer but gentler hike leads to the top of Mt. Tatun. The key attraction of this route is an eerie, extinct crater that is home to a small pond and a large population of snakes, frogs and other swamp animals. On the other side of the mountain is the popular Butterfly corridor, a cool sheltered path about 3 kilometers long. Following the ‘plum rain’ season in April and May, the area comes alive with an estimated 150 species of butterfly.

Yanmingshan is riddled with a complex network of hiking trails that can confuse even native readers of Chinese. The best approach is to stay on one of the many trails and just explore. Sooner or later the trail will hit a road, and the road will have a taxi or scheduled bus service back to Taipei.