Illegal Hikes of Taiwan: Part n

Another jaunt into the wild woods of Taroko National Park; a new trail, a gorgeous day....fully illegal.

Whatever. Illegal means nothing.

Crystal along the path early in the day, fending off pesky Canadian photographers; Trevor poking around the bamboo for snakes.

Trail map along the way which...after much consideration and analysis...told us nothing.

We started the day out wet - rain and fog and that dreary feel down to the bone. We ended the day with sunlight, lots of heat, beautiful breezes and only one (or three) leeches and one vine to the face (me), both leaving a slightly bleeding memory of a wonderful hike.

The trailhead starts at two points - one along the Shakadang Trail (the Shakadang trail ends and merges into the Dali trail) and one right behind the park headquarters. We took the headquarters trailhead allowing us safe scooter parking and, as the first hour or so is up stairs at this section, it got the boring yet necessary stairs out of the way. The rest of the day was sloppy muddy fun!

New caterpillar for us, during a rare (?) cannibalistic rage (left). Bottom dude is munching through the innards of the upper dude. We saw this behaviour twice this day with the same species.

Mating or murder, on the left? On the right another fabulously ornate caterpillar that is new to our eyes.

We spent almost 10 hours in the woods...reaching two villages (where people still live, if only infrequently, in a manner that is much unchanged for hundreds of years save for the technology of basic engines and cigarettes and the like. We met two elderly men who helped us find our way when we were lost, found cannibalistic caterpillars, new caterpillars a new spider species (for us...). We then spent the early evening swimming alone in the desolately clear aquamarine-blue Shakadang River, to the views of limestone cliffs adorned with green vegetation and to the sounds of chirping bulbuls as the dimly lit sky turned to black.

Caterpillars...the biodiversity on this trail was astounding; not just many species, but many new species, that we have never seen before even on trails close by. This trail is much higher than most we hit in this part of the park, so perhaps it is an elevation thing. Perhaps it is a seasonal effect.

The villages in the mountains often have a rig like this to help transport heavy and necessary items like fuel, canned goods, etc. Most people will make the trek down to the river and hike out to catch a bus to town, but many things cannot be brought back up on ones back. These are also survival links during typhoons when trails and roads are cut off or completely washed away. Lifelines in the mountains.

Biking, Squid Fishing and a Wedding

This previous weekend was a bit of a mashing of events. We got around to a nice 70km bike ride south along hwy 9 to a little village (with a horrid story to tell...which I will tell in brief fashion down below) where we got to swim, meet some people and go critter searching; we went squid fishing which involved more vomit and less squid; we went to a wedding ... a "traditional" Buddhist wedding.

Us at the watermelon competition holding part of an obvious loser (i'm sure we could not be able to eat the winner!)


Saturday was a gorgeous day, clear blue skies and nothing but heat, heat, heat. We picked out a place we had never visited before, a little village named DaXing that is about 70k south of our city. We had heard of a nice waterfall there, but it is certainly off the beaten path and not well known so details were scarce. We took our chances, had an excellent ride and were rewarded with a beautiful swimming hole, a neat waterfall and some crazy new critters (see first picture for a taste...but, um, I wouldn't actually eat it).


Along the way we came to a little town called FongLin, which is apparently the location of the rift valleys annual watermelon contest, where the farmers vie for the Biggest Watermelon Award. It is all in good fun, as it should be, and we got to be celebrities for a while (being foreigners, living in the east of Taiwan, biking "so far", speaking Chinese all together... to them it was strange and quite a photo op). We got a lot of free watermelon and had a few nice chats...then hit the road again.


Betel Nut Palms....an endless vista, and some monkey poop!

Once in DaXing, we were drenched with sweat and drained of energy (mostly from the heat) and when we saw a nice little swimming hole in the river, were delighted. Clothes off, in the water. Relief!


It was only after returning home and chatting with my co-workers that I heard of the reality behind this village. It was, one year ago, a larger and well developed area. Then a typhoon came, the landslides came and this village was nearly entirely wiped off the map. Literally. Essentially the village was gone - the structures turned into fragments and the bodies buried. We were, again literally, swimming on top of dead people. After searches, endless searches, only a minor percentage of bodies were found, so we know they have to be under there somewhere. The village has picked itself up and tried to move on...life does go on...but the memory, the history of nature, is in their minds. Landslides and typhoons are normal here, part of life. But to be sitting on top is what is essentially a natural mass grave is a testament to this raw power of nature, and humbling.






Our swimming hole in the evening dusk, and stopping for gas at an illegal place that stores extra gas in water bottles in case of emergencies. This - an empty tank and two hours of driving ahead - was an emergency worthy of illegal actions.


...intense immaturity of their beliefs stunts my appreciation for the human mind.


Moving on....


Crystal and I taking the trip out to sea, with visions of squid dancing in our minds...


Monday night we took to the high seas and went squid fishing. Patching together a rag-tag group of expert (not!) squidders, we suited up and ventured about 15 minutes out to sea... stopped .... and did our best at catching some oceanic oddities. And vomiting. The ocean rolled, we rolled, we cast out....we caught nothing. Nothing!!


But that is ok, because the joy of fishing (I really do hate regular fishing ....I feel sorry for people who go fishing for fun......!) is the camaraderie and the connection to the water. Half of us were fine, half of us spent most of the time starring into the ocean waiting for our dinners to become fertilizer. We did get to see some flying fish in a non-flying state, swimming around curiously in the water.

Green Island and the Sea Turtle

Ok, ill get this off my chest right away - we both saw our first live, in the wild, sea turtle this weekend!

We ... were ... totally ... amazed!

It was a shock, totally unexpected and, while we only got a minute of its time, it was an exceptionally well spent minute.

There were other weird critters that crossed out path this weekend on Green Island - we spent a large portion of our time in or by the ocean, so a lot of the surprises were oceanic. Wet and plushy and slimy.

Ill get to those in time but first the weekend itself - Green Island! Yes, the same island we have ventured to (by our count) seven times now during our time in Taiwan, and each time seems to spring something different on us. Nothing comes to you, lie needs to be searched out, fought for, discovered. Tour buses and programmed itineraries only lick the surface of a glorious lollipop, leaving the inner peanut taffy surprise for those willing to bite down and find it. I'm sure that peanut taffy lollipops exist somewhere....I'm sure of it.

The main flying fish species is a mainstay of the islanders diet - from their head muscle ("sea mushrooms") to the bones for fertilizer. Here the catch from the recent flying fish festival dry in the morning sun.

Friday night we whipped down to Taitung, grabbed a cheap hotel and scuttled over to Taitung's cultural park/concert stage and listened to a cool band (who was apparently VERY popular...by the reaction of the crowd) while eating magi sipping a malty pop. Taiwan, for all its glory and all its ecological amazement and outdoor adventures, lacks culture. It has the old culture - the tea shops, the brush calligraphy, the "Chinese" of old, but lacks a place to hang out and listen to music, check out art, etc. Many townships are doing a lot to try to remedy this - turning old train stations into art galleries, old breweries into concert halls, etc. But, overall, there is a lack of this sort of this still. So, we know that a trip to Taitung will allows us to be a part of the growing art-culture movement for a night, and we try not to miss it when we are in town.

Taiwan moves off into the distance as our ferry...um...ferries us to the island. Once there, we poke around the tide pools and take a little morning swim.

Saturday we woke later than we planned, despite three alarms, and realized that our ferry was leaving in 30 minutes, and we were a good 15min drive from the terminal, plus the morning teeth brishing, breakfast, coffee, waiting for a taxi, etc. We skipped everything except waiting for the taxi....and made it there in time. We boarded, settled on the back railing and took the ~45 minute ferry ride from Taiwan proper to the little volcanic gem of Green Island.

While the island can be super touristy at times, there are places that people simply don't go (because their pre-planned tour bus itineraries don't allow them to). So, while the "tourist" spots are crammed with people, the real highlights of the island are vacant. Which is why we come back.

Goats. Everywhere. This little dude was a pet for a tea shop, and aside from befriending us it gave eating my clothes a hearty go, too.

Saturday we split our time between hiking along the coast and checking out tide pools, and taking a glass bottom boat (with no actual glass bottom, just windows) out to the deeper reefs - eels, crabs, fish, fish, fish, crabs, eels, amazing rock coral and some pretty neat land plants that face the worst of the islands wind, salt water intrusion and desiccation and come out on top - the flourish. Life...amazing stuff. It was on the boat that we saw a slow, majestic sea turtle going about its business with no concern to the world above. Along with the turtle were the regular reef compadres, the reef itself, and a giant blue vista of ocean. Stunning stuff. We capped the day off with a nice hike partway across the island - hearing barking deer and finding three new bird species (for us, not new to science....I can only presume!) and then a nice night walk along the coastal forest and down to the empty beach. 3/4 moon, empty beach, pounding waves, sweet breeze, warm sand below....a giant volcanic massif behind us....all in the darkness of night. This is what Green Island is all about. Then, on the way home, we came upon the worlds weirdest creature - or close enough thereto.

The goat won the seat in the end!

Japanese white eye (left) and a cool green beetle on the right.

Sunday we decided to get a nice sunburn, and it took us a while to figure out how to do it properly - Green Island style. Some ideas were to slather ourselves with cooking oil and sit on the ferry dock,or lay on the roof and point mirrors on us...and many others that included poached flesh as the key goal. In the end, we decided to rent snorkel gear and head out on our own to the low tide reef and check out fishy critters. That did the job nicely. We now have certified "Green Island Sunburns" on all parts of our bodies that we forgot to slather with sun goo. We look so cool.

However, said snorkel time was amazing - sea cucumbers, some sort of sea anemone, fish up the wazoo (not literally, ill remind you) ...so many cool things. I even found some guys scooter key that he had lost. Totally worth it!

Above and below: lizards, birds and sea slugs

On the road, catching a glimpse of one of the many endangered species roadkill that plagues this island. Too much traffic, little awareness of the ecological fragility of such a small habitat.

Like all things, time flows by and days grow short....we packed up our stuff and headed back to the ferry and took a wavy, windy, undulating ferry ride some, sans vomit. I'm getting good at that compared to my first year in Taiwan. Crystal ever seems to have a problem....

And that is that. Home, back to work, sorting through pictures of things unknown from the oceans shores. Complexity reigns supreme in the worlds oceans, and Green Island is our little window into the world we never knew growing up.

We may never be here again, and if so....goodbye, Green Island!

Jiaming Lake

This story started out two years ago when we learned that there was a lake in the central mountains that was formed by a meteor strike some few thousand years ago. A blue gem tucked within the emerald green folded mountains of Taiwan. Two loves - astronomy and hiking - combined into one adventure.

Dreams were created...plans were made....someday. Time passed, weekends flew by, other priorities took their toll. The hike was never done. Part of the problem in reaching this sumptuous lake was the time - a five hour drive to the trailhead, a three day hike and a five hour drive home. It could be done in three days, but they would be three tight days, and it took the arrival of a "real" long weekend (Taiwanese still think that having Saturday off every weekend is a 'long' weekend as the 6 day work-week ended only recently) to actually make these plans. We looked ahead in the calendar, saw that the Dragon Boat Festival was a quaint little three day break that would work perfectly for us. So, plans in mind and all the paper work filled out we went to the police station to get our mountain permit and that was that.

We were legally going to hike in Taiwan.

I know. I know. It was a shock to us too. It felt weird...but what was even weirder was to learn in the days preceding our hike that this was not in fact a meteor impact crater. That was but some heresay that turned into established fact....only, it lacked facts. Religion-esque, in that regard; everybody "knew" it was a meteor impact and nobody questioned it. After researchers actually did take time to question it, it was actually shown to be a cirque, a testament to an ice age past. This did not deter us in the least...imagine the equal amazement of standing on a chunk of island that heats us to the boiling point and to be able to look out over a vista of landforms carved out by glaciers. Equally moving, and the beauty undeterred.

Day 1:

This was actually a night only...a rapid exit from Hualien Friday night after work. We packed the rental car and zoomed southward to ChiShang and then across Highway 20 (Southern Cross-Island Highway). Dinner on the run, coffee...tea...coffee....and up and up along the winding mountain hugging road. Somewhere around 10:30pm we got to Xiang Yang Park, where the trail starts. Tent up by a helicopter landing platform....warm stuff layered on (it was fracking freezing up there in the mountains) and got to spend an hour gazing at possibly the greatest star-filled sky I have ever seen. Without a doubt the best viewing in all my experiences in Taiwan.

Oh yeah, we saw a Formosan Gem Faced Civet along the way! No pictures, we were driving no less, but we got to see another rare Taiwanese wildlife treat in the mountains.

Setting up the tent Friday night in the bleak darkness of the mountain road, and waking up Saturday morning to a gorgeous view.

Day 2:

Awake at sunrise...packed....go! Police permit handed in, names checked, gates opened....the hike begins!

This was a full 13 km day up to the alpine, then across a ridge line to the lake. There are two cabins along the way, but many people tend to use these are the crowded atmosphere is somewhat debilitating to the vibe of the mountains. So, we pounded on past the first cabin (XiangYang Cabin) and past the second cabin (Jiaming Lake Cabin) and all the way to the lake itself. We started at the trailhead around 9 and got to the lake around 6:30om, and with the elevation, hills, weight on our backs and the fact that the last 4 km were spent within a cloud that was as windy as a wind storm factory (whatever that would be like...windy, I am sure), we were spent. We plodded on at a good pace the whole time, got some epic views of Taiwanese alpine and got to be alone in the mountains for a significant chunk of the day. It was a hard, but lovely, hike.

After setting up the tent and pounding back some noodles, we were ready for sleep. We were embarrassingly too tired to care about the Samba Deer that were walking about around the hills surrounding the lake. We stayed up as long as we could, looking now and then, but the reality was that we both needed to put heads to pillows....fast!

Alpine flowers and ...um...somebody should fix that sign.

Start of the trail, wide and steep, that quickly took us to a lovely look out over the mountains. Landslides and glistening shale.

Taking a moment at the lookout, naming the peaks as we go. Then moving upwards again...

Here the trail had already turned into a 'real' hiking trail, and meandered its way through a mixed hemlock forest. Monsters of the ice age that still remain...

Hiking, views, trails cut into cliffs, fixed with ropes and hope. The trail took us through some amazing scenery and some amazing feats of engineering to defend against the ever present landslides. Or, perhaps not defend...try to keep up with...the landslides.

First cabin lunch stop....cool clouds and a blue sky.

Trail breaks into the alpine and gives us a whole new hiking experience.

Saturday was mostly up, in the blazing alpine sun. Hot, hard, hot and hard. And hot. Unlike the Taiwanese hikers we were without umbrellas (and knee pads, and hiking poles, and hiking gloves, and ... and ... ) which they take everywhere. I think we were better off for our lack of gadgetry.

Taiwanese fellow hikers along the way, and a stranger helping me pose for a picture that is apparently famous and funny....but I cant seem to get it. He said it was perfect...I'm still trying to figure it out.

Late afternoon brought clouds - or, rather, we got high enough that we were in the clouds - and strong wind. We opted not to camp at the second cabin as tents were already being set up in the most curious of places due to lack of room. In blustering winds these people set up their tents and then left them there to save a space....but the wind decided that the tents should blow away. So, while we walked by we were also tasked with catching other peoples (not weighted down or pegged in some cases) tents and pile rocks on them to protect them from being blown down the cliff side!

Finally at the lake, we found a secluded spot and set up our tent and brewed some coffee and tea. The last hour or so of the hike was windy, cloudy and cold, and when we arrived here the slight reprieve from the wind was delightful but the evening chill was still there. We tucked in for a chilly night.

Even instant noodles taste amazing after a full day of hiking...

Day 3:

Windy night, but no matter. The tent survived and we were able to get most of a nights sleep. We spent this day hiking around the lake, along a river valley and to the next ridge. Making our own trail (like that is a challenge in the alpine, I know!) across parts of Taiwan utterly unknown to us was an delight. We had waited so long for this...

We got to see some new bird species, hang out with massive alpine hemlocks (think lowland boreal rain forest but in the alpine...weird) and found four Samba Deer in the meadows. Us, alone in the middle of Taiwan's alpine wonderland, watching brand new birds flutter around and Samba Deer cheekily wander around the hillsides in front of us, eating peanuts and warm carrot sticks while the blue sky poured stinging sunlight down on us. What else is there....

We got back and ended an almost cloudless day with another noodle dinner by the lake as the evening wisps of clouds parked themselves over top....momentarily...then left. This night we had ample energy left to stay up and stargaze and search for more night wandering deer.

Jiaming Lake in the morning, and a yet unidentified bird.

Hiking, birdwatching, searching for deer...

Crystal along the trail on Sunday, while a lone early blooming rhododendron poses nicely in front of a mountain vista.

Sambar Deer! We got to see about 8 by the lake, and 4 in the forest.

Day 4:

Our last day on the mountain. We woke up at 4:30 to catch the 5-ish a.m. sunrise and had a slow breakfast to wash down the memories of the last few days and prepare for the return journey.

Once packed and ready, we walked. The day was a long and wonderful hike back along the trail through the best scenery that Taiwan has to offer. I wont go into details, but the hiking strategy of Canadians versus Taiwanese is remarkable. Ill leave it at that, and only mention that we passed a lot of friendly, yet oddly dressed and "technically inclined" hikers. Still, ultimately kind and generous people all around. The mountains brings out the best of people...

A 5 hour hike brought us back to the trailhead, where we made some lunch, tea and hit the road for home. 5 hours later we pulled up in front of our apartment...the weekend was over. An utterly wonderful weekend. Jiaming did not let us down, and the weather was the icing on the cake....a long awaited cake.

Monday morning sunrise...then our battery died!