If you were to draw a line between Daxi (in Ilan County) and ShuangXi then over to PingLin (both in Taipei County) and back to Daxi the area would encompass an area of great natural beauty, relatively few settlements, and for the hiker quite a range of hikes from old footpaths to abandoned villages, old forestry trails, routes to various peaks and ridge routes of varying roughness, as well as paths alongside streams and rivers.
My hike began in PingLin which I reached by bus early in the morning last Saturday coming over the Bei-I Hwy from XinDien in Taipei City. The day had great potential as I began to take in the crisp blue sky and look over at the mountains over in the Wulai direction. At its high point, the road has views on the left towards ShiDing and on the right part of the FeitSui Dam can be seen.
I looked over at the ridge that juts out from ErGer Shan and noticed the viewpoint platform from where I had seen in the first dawn of the new millenium, Jan 1st 2000. The bus zoomed along twisting and turning as it descended the quiet road into PingLin.
First up was to climb Cho Chong Lin Shan a peak directly due south of town at 726 meters. After crossing the main bridge out of town in the direction of Ilan there is a small road that winds uphill to some tea farms. After about 5 minutes of walking in the early morning air, I noticed a new sign pointing up a side road. The path has recently been upgraded with wooden boards bolstering the steps and some of the undergrowth hacked away to give good views of downtown PingLin and the valley. The tea farms in the hills, the freeway emerging from the side valley, the road going on to Ilan and various peaks and ridges could all be seen in a clarity that hasn’t always been the lot of the hiker in the north of the island this year but one I intended to take full advantage of on this day.
An odd thing about some peaks is that while views can be had while on the way up, sometimes the actual peak itself has too much undergrowth and tree cover to afford a view. This was the case with this peak, but the next peak Yen Mao Shan further along was better. Standing on wooden benches recently installed there on the peak, I could peer over the bushes and see a little further up river in the direction I was going, the aim being to reach the wilder country by nightfall and camp there. The cicadas started up buzzing and whirring at different pitches. A feeling of peace came in as I drank my water. Summer is coming and it'll be sweated out on these hills with my pack, my water and my boots. The sixth pair I've gone through with no end to what I've got planned in these mountains.
After a while the ridge route began to peter out at a large area of saw grass, which on further inspection looked like an abandoned tea field whose plants hadn’t taken. I laboriously swum through this part, bushwacking back to the forested part while a serpent eagle wove circles above me, sizing me up and emitting its cries. The heat was picking up and I took a large gulp of water from my dromedary bag full of about two liters of water. On top of that I had another liter and a half in a couple of bottles in my pack. I also had on my farmers gloves that reduce the cuts one gets when on an overgrown track. Regaining the trail,it was easy to see that not many trekkers came this way. Reaching a junction, I took a path that went down to the road and further downhill to ChenYuen Gong a small temple and the trail head to HuTonGuDao. This has to be one of the steepest paths down a mountainside that isn’t rigged with ropes that I’ve been on. Gripping tree roots and watching out for my footing, I went down slowly and cautiously not wanting to cause a tension sweat, then popped out on a road next to a stream where I washed my hands and face.
The abovementioned temple, further down the road, is the start of the well-known HuTonGuDao which leads to the abandoned village of HuTonGuShyr. This path was a little up and down, but basically contoured around the mountain side in deep forest and crossed a few small streams along the way. Coming around a corner, I surprised a resting serpent eagle which leisurely took off from a branch just above, its large wings and tailfeathers with a white band leaving the thick forest for the safety of the air. The actual vilage is just a few stone walls and more recently installed shrines, perhaps people still attend to graves nearby. Healthy looking clumps of bamboo were dotted around the terraces where the village used to be. Here and there small paths could be seen but didn't lead to anywhere.
Exploration over, I followed the main path along and then down, then up over a pass and down through another area with a lot of bamboo to the end, or should that be the beginning, of the road. I was a long way from anywhere at FanJiaKeng as I came out at the back of a house. It looked in use but no-one was around. It was one of those houses where the modern building methods seemed to accrete on to an older structure. the lower base being a base of old stone set in a zig-zag pattern. Walking along the farm road, I saw a portly middle-aged man lying on his side, his head on a sack and a pair of dragon flies weaving patterns obliviously above. Or were they? He grunted and mumbled as the scrunch of my boots coming near disturbed him. Around the corner, his wife was drying tea leaves on the road and gave me a friendly greeting.
Now I was on the high road, a road that goes all the way to ChangChiaChuang, a campground near where two rivers join, the WanTan and the Beishyr, whose combined forces form the main river to PingLin. The road was shaded but with great views across the valley down below. This far up river there were few settlements, perhaps a total of fifteen households and not a single car passed me until I was a kilometer or less from the campsite. The farmer guy stopped his old Ford Capri and asked where I was going. After hearing my reply, he said fine and drove on. In a situation like that, it would’ve been easy to have gotten a ride, but I’m glad I didn’t because as the sun had already set and it was more or less dark, coming around the corner an open area of overgrown rice fields in a little hollow, I saw a very intense display of fireflies flashing on and off with a slight tinge of magnesium blue, mostly stationary hanging on leaves and fern tendrils as if they’d only just got in position and hadn’t summoned up the energy to dance around. I stayed there a while, lying on the road drinking water, getting ready for my own burst of energy to take me down to the river.
I camped at an old farmhouse further up the WanTan River. At this point, there is no road just a path along the river. I camped in the old terraced area which sometimes have buffalo there but which i haven’t seen on my three most recent visits. I hadn’t eaten all day except for a couple of handfuls of raisins for lunch, so my simple meal of mashed potatoes, salty crackers and Yam and Mixed cereals drink were a much needed boost.
The next morning dawned mostly clear but with clouds in the direction of the coast. I returned to the campground and went around the corner to where the road ends at a bridge over the river. A party of car-hikers had parked their vehicles and set up a shelter as their mess hall, but it was so early in the morning that they were all asleep in their tents and cars. I continued up a rocky and mossy path that followed a line of electricity poles up the hillside. This path isn’t tagged or on any maps but it leads to two old stone houses that are pretty remote. The poles marked out my route as I plodded through field, then damp forest ,then a muddy road and at the high point a concrete road down to the ShuangXi to Daxi road. The weather was fair as I walked on this road to LiaoJiaoKung where a road fizzles out at some overgrown fields and wild ginger patches.
This was to be the last ridge before making it over to the ShuangXi valley. The path was leisurely, wide and shaded, and the gradient wasn’t too steep.Perhaps this was an old camphor extraction road in bygone times. The path slips through a pass east of a peak at 614 meters and comes to a junction soon after. Here I met the first people on any path during my trip. The stocky looking guy was accompanied by six dogs who were quite friendly until a more snarly one decided to go into bark mode. When I realised the owner was also on his way down, I decided to take the rockier route down to shake them off, the owner unlikely to choose that trail which would harm his companions paws. The path wound down a steep cleft in the hills and a stream began to form. It was also an area where buffalo used to be grazed although there was no evidence of their presence on that morning. Weaving through more riverbanks, terrace embankments, bushes, bamboo and a few old rotting stiles on my way to JienLiao and the road to ShuangXi, it amazed me to think how just a few generations ago, people in such areas used every bit of land they could. Days, months, years of effort on roadless hillsides were their lot in life, but the paths they left behind are priceless.