Bilu and Yangtou Mountain, Taroko Gorge National Park

Walking through a frost covered forest in Taroko Gorge National Park

Mount Bilu and Yangtou are located near the top of Taroko Gorge National Park.  Both peaks are above 3000m and can be done as individual days hikes, a mad single day traverse or a 2-3 day traverse with camping.

Day 1

It’s a long drive from Taipei to Dayuling for the start of the hike.  With the restrictions on the Suhua Highway, we had to come via Lishan and it took almost 6 hours to get there.  The trailhead starts next to the Dayuling Tunnel which is the intersection for Lishan, Hehuanshan and Taroko Gorge.

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Nenggao Historic Trail 2

A view of Nenggao Mountain on the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan

Neil and I revisited the Nenggao Historic Trail this weekend taking a group of 7 people with us.  This was a first go at guiding people on an over-nighter and we were lucky enough to have great company, weather and some fabulous views near the top of the Cilai South Peak.  It was a great weekend out away from the cities and into nature.

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Jialuohu 2, Yilan County – 加羅湖

I recently took another trip to the remote mountain lake, Jialuohu 加羅湖 with Neil again.  This was our second trip here and both times have been fantastic.  Won’t write too much about the actual hike.  Anyone looking for details can find them on my original post – Jialuohu

Here’s a few photos from the trip. 

More photos from Neil here.

Jialuohu early morning

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Neng Gao Historic Trail – 能高越嶺古道

The Neng Gao Historic Trail 能高越嶺古道, like so many of Taiwan’s Historic trails, was originally built by the Japanese to help control and subdue the aboriginal tribes that lived in that area.  After some time, the occupying Japanese began a project to use the trail to build and maintain power lines that run from the west to the more remote east coast but this was delayed by the onset of World War Two.  Eventually the power lines were built by the Taipower company after the Japanese left Taiwan and they still remian today.

Negotiating the huge landslide

 

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A Cave, a Lake and a Peak in Chiayi County

This weekend we shot down to Chiayi straight after work for a fantastic 2 day excursion in the mountains near Alishan.  The scenery and hiking were second to none taking in a beautiful peak (Luchushan 鹿屈山) with views of a snow-capped Yushan, an earthquake created-lake (Shuiyang Forest 水漾森林) and an enormous cave, fittingly called the thousand people cave (Qianrendong 千人洞).

The Thousand People Cave

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Songluo Lake – 松羅湖

Songluohu 松羅湖 is a kind of swampy lake set in a small basin and surrounded by mountains on all sides. It’s a tremendously beautiful place and in some ways very similar to Jialuohu 加羅湖 which is also in Yilan. They are both great places to hike and camp and both can easily be done in a weekend.

We set off on Saturday morning and took the number 9 towards Yilan. It’s a great road to drive on, especially since most of the Taipei to Yilan traffic now goes through the Xueshan tunnel. And the views of the Yilan plain towards the end of the road are spectacular (weather permitting!).

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Jialuo Lake – 加羅湖

For this four day weekend we had originally planned to hike some of the bigger mountains of Taiwan but getting a permit proved difficult and so we settled on going to Jia Luo lake in Yilan.

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Syaroko Historic Trail – 霞喀羅古道

In October of last year I hiked this trail from the Qingquan side to the abandoned police station in the middle and back. This time we decided to start at the other end, at Yoro 養老, and hike to the middle and back again.

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Jiaming Lake – 嘉明湖

This is a trip that I had been meaning to make for sometime and, like so many of my ideas, I just hadn’t got round to doing it but finally Chinese new year gave me the opportunity to get up off my arse and go.Jiaminghu is a lake in the south of Taiwan, in Taidong county. It was first thought that the lake was created by a meteor strike, but it turns out that it is actually a tarn left over from the ice age and was created around 6-7000 years ago.  The lake is elliptical in shape and is actually quiet deep (10m) at the deepest point. My original plan included swimming in the lake but temperatures barely getting above zero put that idea to rest!

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The Sixiu – 四秀

This was one of the hardest hikes I’ve done. The sixiu (四秀) is made up of four peaks, Taoshan, Kelayeshan, Chiyoushan and Pintianshan. We planned to visit three of them over two days but the weather conspired against us and we only made it to two.

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