Welcome to Hiking with Tom, the new series in my blog where I bring you reports of hiking in Taiwan. I’m hoping to head out at least twice a month, but hey, let’s see how it goes.
One of the great things about the UK was being able to pick up and bring back my hiking boots and poles to Taiwan. For those who don’t know, I just to hike quite a bit in the UK and completed, ‘the Pennine Way’ and ‘the Coast to Coast’ amongst others, but this is going back a few years. Intro over, let’s get into it…
Being reacquainted with my walking boots and poles inspired me to do a bit of research hiking more in Taiwan. I had been to Yangmingshan before, and done Hemei/Shitou ‘mountains’ just outside Xindian in New Taipei but wanted to know more. Throughout last week, I spent hours doing my research and came up with a few ideas.
I wanted to go Saturday but no dice, my annual work’s meal scuppered that so Sunday it had to be. The forecast was for rain, but after midday. Given I’ve always enjoyed walking early morning, that didn’t matter too much anyway. Saturday work’s meal done, I went on a bike ride, bought my bus ticket for Sunday’s trip and tried to get some sleep…
1:00am and my alarm went off, yes 1:00am. The plan was to head to Taipei, then onto Yangmingshan overnight with the possibility of hot springs after. I got my rucksack packed with waterproofs and some spare clothes, taking into account, I expected to do the hot springs in Xinbeitou after.
I left my apartment at 1:20, ordered a taxi and was outside the bus stop at 1:35am, ahead of the 2:00am bus to Taipei. There were no issues, and I was in the capital shortly after 6. I took the MRT to Jiantan, and from there had a 15 minute wait for bus R5 to Yangmingshan. I was not the only one with the idea of going out early.
Unlike my last time to Yangmingshan, the bus didn’t take too long as you’d expect on a Sunday morning and there was a short wait for bus 108, that does a circuit around stopping at the major tourist sites. At Erziping I got off and it was time to get the hike underway. I wanted something challenging, and I planned to head to Mt Miantian, Mt Xiangtian then on the Datun range and play it by ear after that.
For illustration purposes, here was my planned route. I started walking at 7:37am, the times shown between all the places add up to 7 hours 35, I knew I could do it in less.
It didn’t look much and the opening 1.8km to Erziping were a stroll in the park, an easy trail. ‘Ping’ for reference means a flat area, so between mountains in this context.
I made my way to the Mt Miantian trail head, there were two routes. One on a gravel track, I chose the other, a trail that involved the first of many slippery, mossy covered steps. I reached the head of the Mt Miantian trail at 8:19 and was treated to 20 minutes of step climbing. It wasn’t technically difficult but it was tedious. The summit at 977m was reached, mountain one done!
It was a sharp downhill then a short, rolling ascent between Mt Miantian and Mt Xiangtian, which was quite dull. It felt like such an insignificant peak but at 949m, would be amongst the highest if it were in England.
The descent to Xiangtian Pond was much like the ascent up Mt Miantian but slightly shorter. At the bottom, it wasn’t immediately obvious whether to go left or right but a left turn took me to a sign and Xiangtian Pond itself. I turned right and had a quick look at the ‘pond’ which was completely dry, I backtracked and carried on left through the trees on a flat stepped trail to Miantianping.
On the walk to Miantianping there were a couple of groups of walkers and the 1.3km was very easily done in under 20 minutes.
Arriving at Miantianping, there was a pavilion and warning sign about the trail to Mt Datun West, that caution should be taken after wet weather. I didn’t think too much of it, especially as the first 250 metres were a steady climb up through tree roots, I noted it was fairly easy, how that was to change!
The roots gave way to clay like mud, difficult to get a foothold or pole-hold in, and extremely slick on the surface. The remaining 450 metres to the summit were amongst the hardest 450 metres I think I’ve ever done. There were support ropes in places and I abandoned my poles in favour of dragging my way up with rope.
Eventually, even after slipping over twice I made it to the summit at 1010, just under 30 minutes, little did I know that the descent to Mt Datun South would be just as, if not more difficult!
From the summit of Mt Datun West, the trail went straight into a scramble I was totally unprepared for. Add in a bit of mud, and the length of, it became frustrating. I notably slipped and fell on my coccyx which was almost funny. I had said I wanted a challenge, this was definitely that!
Despite feeling longer it only took 12 minutes to reach the bottom. The path leveled out, through more and slippery steps, before the path turned left up another difficult, muddy section towards the summit of Mt Datun South.
In this short 30 minute span, the fog had started to roll in and the summit of Mt Datun South was much like Mt Xiangtian, feeling rather insignificant at 959m. With the fog, I didn’t stick around long and made a decision to try, and get down towards Datunping as quickly as possible.
The descent to Datunping took just over 10 minutes, and I slipped over right on my backside in front of a family of four which was a bit embarrassing! I had two options from there, a 3.2km stroll back to Erziping Visitor Center or a shorter 2.8km walk back via Mt Datun. Having done 4 mountains already, the decision was easy even with the fog… I was going up Mt Datun itself!
This was actually quite a boring walk, it was endless steps through the fog to the top. The steps were not moss covered like most of the other ones on the walk and the only difficult bit, was staying awake during what felt like an endless trudge to the top.
There was absolutely no view, and more annoyingly, you couldn’t access the proper peak of Mt Datun because of a weather observatory. It was however, 1090m up and the highest point of the day.
There was little motivation to find an extended route back to Erziping Visitor Center, and I followed the path to Anbu, the entrance of which was slightly hidden, next to a locked gate. There were endless steps down too, these were of the slippery kind and I had to turn off due a trail closure. It put me on the tarmac road, back steeply to the visitor center car-park.
The walk was done, my legs had had enough. It had been fun, and I’d certainly got the challenge I wanted. The 10km walk was finished after 4 hours and 35 minutes, which I felt it was quite a solid time.
I made my way to Yangmingshan Bus Terminal and made my way to home in Tainan. A fun day, and I can’t wait to bring my report from my next hike, hopefully this weekend!
Tom.
Tom's Travels 2019 