Teapot Mountain and Banping Mountain

Teapot Mountain as seen from Banping Mountain

Teapot Mountain on Taiwan’s north coast has to have some the most amazing views you can get for a day hike from Taipei City.  The hike begins in the rejuvenated Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park. I remember visiting this area years and just thinking how depressing it was, but it’s now fully open and makes for a nice place to visit especially in the morning when the crowds aren’t too bad.

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Beidawu – 北大武山

Sunset near the Kuaigu Cabin

Having failed to get a permit in the Yushan National Park because of the snow season, we headed a little further south to Pingdong County to hike Beidawushan which is Taiwan’s southern most Baiyue (top one hundred mountain). In the past this was a reasonable 2 day hike, but a large landslide caused my Typhon Morakot means the trailhead is much lower and further back making it a much tougher walk. We did it in 2 days, but if you’ve got the time, I think 3 days would be more enjoyable.

Although it’s one of the smaller Baiyue (3092m), Beidawu is a mammoth rock that rises sharply from the ground. The strip of land that it lies on is only 80km from the west coast to the east coast and on fine days you can see both (or so I hear!)

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Taipei Top Five Day Hikes

I often get people asking for good day trip hikes to do in and around Taipei so I thought I’d write about my own top 5.  They’re in no particular order and each one is very different and in terms of terrain and difficulty.  All can be done in a day by public transport with the exception of Beichatianshan.

One of the many views of Taipei 101 from the Four Beasts

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