I’m looking for information on any really interesting or challenging hikes in Taroko. I’m not a climber, so I don’t want anything technical, just fairly tough hikes with spectacular views. I’ve heard also that there’s one really scary one carved out of the rock on a massive cliff by the Japanese. If you have any useful Taroko knowledge relevant to this, drop me a line. Cheers.
Before doing this, you might consider reading the following two threads:
[url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/fred-frontier/4798/1 Frontier[/url]
[url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/fred-frontier-part-2/10519/1 Frontier Part 2[/url]
This didn’t get much first time around.
The Park Authorities opened the Zhuilu 錐麓 trail (part of the old Hehuan road) this summer, it begins at the suspension bridge at the start of the Yanzikou section, and brings you out upstream right by the Cimu bridge.
With the trail crossing the Zhuilu cliff face, a vertical drop of about 500m and only 70cm wide in places, it’s not one for the faint-hearted. The recommended trail time is 7 hours, trail length is about 10-11km. Both NP and Police permits are required, there’s a limit on daily permits and the trail is apparantly regularly policed.
Of course, it’s just been closed for ‘facility damage’. Only lasted 3 months 
. Will post when it re-opens, hopefully soon.
Has anyone here ever done that hike? It sounds intriguing. But I’m not sure I’d want to do it if it scared me shitless.
BigJ, your OP said you wanted scary hikes, now you don’t want to be scared shitless. What changed in 3 years 
? I don’t know anyone who’s been on the Zhuilu, but I’ll give it a go when/if it re-opens.
Here’s a set of pics - you can see the narrowest part of the ledge walk - this is about 500m long. One of those that’s quite airy when you first come across it, but once you get walking (one hand clenched around the rope that runs along the cliff-face side 
) I’m sure it’s fine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shihhung/sets/72157606159352966/
I like how the Park is trying to make everyone walk the trail in the same direction, so there’s no awkward passing moments on the cliff-face.
Looking at those pics, I’m wondering if the trail is mountainbikeable. That single track looks real sweet to ride on, if it didn’t have that sheer cliff down the ravine just one foot away.
:bravo: I did think the same thing. Then I started to imagine the ultimate fear of trying to cycle a gravel track no wider than your handlebars, with a 500m drop on one side. Madness .
I once read about a guy down in Arizona or New Mexico who was cycling a famous trail on one of those buttes - he tried to hop a rock and caught his front chain-ring on it. Wearing cleats as well, so no time to unclip. He fell. A long way. Didn’t make it.
Good point! I guess I’m willing to be scared up to a point but after that it’s no fun in any more. But those pics make the Zhuilu hike look perfect.
I’ve seen some narrow goat paths in India that people used to follow that were truly terrifying. This one looks OK - if people do in fact only go one way.
As to mountain biking it - I’m sure that would be a huge rush. But one slip and you’re dead. I also don’t think the hikers would appreciate it. Mmmmm…maybe a stilt unicyle??
Incubus:
No way you are going to mountain bike that trail. It’s even more scary than it looks in those nice photos.
BigJohn
Zhuilu is exciting but not really all that tough. It can be done in 6-7 hours by anyone with a reasonable degree of fitness. If open, the Huoran Pavilion Trail from Tianxiang is a bit more challenging. However, for real challenges, any of the mountaineering trails listed in this very useful status guide should leave your legs shaking and your back too sore to get out of bed for a few days. You might try the Mt. Bilu/Yangtou hike first.
You should never hike alone, but especially not in Taroko.
V. nice list feiren, not seen that.
There’s also the trail up to the Yanhai logging road. This starts from the pavillon just south of the Heliu camping ground. Cross the suspension bridge, and you kick up immediately to the top of the waterfall (fill up with water here, there’s no more on the climb). Once across the river, the trail goes up to the top of the ridge and the old logging winch (this can be seen from the main highway at Heliu if you look carefully).
It’s a steep trail, gets steeper the higher up you go, and near the top there’s quite a few sections with fixed ropes to help you up/down. Def not something to be done in the wet.
Once you get to the logging winch, you can easily walk for 3 or 4km on the logging road, it’s pretty level and scenic. When I was up there, there was only one water source, about 2km along. A NP permit is required - you probably won’t be stopped without one, but that’s at your own risk.
Finally got to hike that (reopened) Zhuilu Trail today, perfect weather, everything dry and sunny - so it was an easy walk. Completed it in 4.5 hours, could easily be done in 4 if you got your skates on. You need to apply 3 days beforehand for the Park Permit.
The Cliff Section was spectacularly high and wondrous, but a little disappointing - I was expected the path to be inches across and it was feet instead. Think I built it up a little too much. So not really that airy, although one wrong stumble and it’s a long way down to the river / road.
Definitely no way you’d be wanting to mountain bike it though - for one thing it would be a killer hike just carrying the bike up. Perhaps you could get a unicycle up there, although no-one’s going to do that.
And I thought Agent Scholl was the daftest person I’d ever heard of! 
that’s pretty cool, but loses points because there’s a rope on the side that he can grab onto if he cocks something up.
That’s WHACKED OUT, man!
OMG that is so dangerous. Did you notice at the end, he WASN’T WEARING A HELMET!! 
Not sure how much a helmet would help for a drop like that… Looks like a nice hike though - Kea, you up for it some time this summer?
[quote=“Feiren”]Incubus:
No way you are going to mountain bike that trail. It’s even more scary than it looks in those nice photos.
BigJohn
Zhuilu is exciting but not really all that tough. It can be done in 6-7 hours by anyone with a reasonable degree of fitness. If open, the Huoran Pavilion Trail from Tianxiang is a bit more challenging. However, for real challenges, any of the mountaineering trails listed in this very useful status guide should leave your legs shaking and your back too sore to get out of bed for a few days. You might try the Mt. Bilu/Yangtou hike first.
You should never hike alone, but especially not in Taroko.[/quote]
I did the Zhuilu hike with Feiren and a few others. It is indeed exciting and to emphasize his point about never hiking alone (or at the very least telling someone trustworthy where you’re going), I’ll relate a story that was told us by a park ranger on that trip. A visiting birdwatcher noticed a funny looking bird flapping its wings way up on the side of a rock face up on the Zhuilu trail (I think it was the Zhuilu trail, or one nearby). It turned out to be a solo Swiss hiker who had not told anyone where he was going and was trapped when his route back down disappeared in a landslide. He had been stuck there for a couple of days and was really lucky to be spotted by the birdwatcher. The ranger said the first thing the Swiss hiker did when they reached him was apologize that he might have already overstayed his visa (apparently he was toward the end of a landing visa period when he visited Taroko). Evidently the Swiss are very regulation-abiding. Of course he was probably delirious from exposure at the time too.
I’ve also witnessed (in the distance from below) a large section of a mountainside in Taroko suddenly peal off with no warning on a perfectly clear day. Thought it was a peel of thunder, looked, and there it was cascading down. The mountains are very brittle there.
I’d love to do that hike this fall, with a calm-nerved, reliable sort, reasonably deft of foot, and with no special fear of heights. Anybody interested?
I am. It doesn’t look much worse than some of the ridge hikes I used to do in Hawaii.