Everyone is welcome to come along next Saturday (June 23) for an easy but hugely enjoyable river-trace up the Jiajiuliao Stream (加九寮溪).
Rendezvous time will be a bright and early 7:30 at Xindian MRT station. We’ll probably take the bus from there (just a 15~20 minute ride) for simplicity’s sake.
No special equipment will be needed - just a pair of cheap fishermen’s non-slip shoes (not expensive rubbish from Timberland etc. , but the cheapest made-in-Taiwan NT$250~300 防滑鞋, which are by far the best for the purpose).
After we reach Fairy Pool (仙女潭), we’ll continue along the right branch of the stream to another good swimming and semi-waterfally spot where no Hiking Club activity has ventured before, so we’ll be breaking new ground as well as re-visiting some old favourites like this slide along the way: youtube.com/watch?v=SmQDSxSuC7A
If torrential rain in the next week makes the river untraceable, we’ll postpone the event to the following Saturday.
Please post here or PM me if you want to be in on this.
Walking along, beside and through the river. Mostly, it’s along the rocks beside the river/stream, criss-crossing the shallow parts along the way.
This is a very easy stream for river-tracing (perhaps I should start calling it “stream-tracing”), and the deepest water that has to be crossed is no more than mid-thigh deep - mostly it’s just ankle or knee deep. There are plenty of deeper places for those who want to immerse themselves more fully, and several very good pools for swimming.
We trace up, then leave the stream and walk back along a trail.
And since a couple of participants live quite far from Xindian, I’ve changed the rendezvous time to 8 am.
I think you may be right about that. I hope it doesn’t affect any of the people intending to come on the hike.
And the latest on the hike is:
I went up to the river for a swim earlier today, and was pleased to find that the water is down to a pretty normal level. So as long as there’s no torrential rain between now and Saturday, it should be perfect for us.
Since three people are coming by car from Yangmei, I may as well take my car too. There’ll be room in it for all three of the others who are joining us. That, of course, includes you, Chris, and if Kitty decides to come, one of you can get a ride in the other car.
Those coming by MRT should turn left when they come through the ticket-barrier, and they’ll see me waiting in or by my grey Suzuki Swift. For absolute clarity, that is on the Bitan side of the station, not the Beiyi Road side.
[quote=“Omniloquacious”]
Those coming by MRT should turn left when they come through the ticket-barrier, and they’ll see me waiting in or by my grey Suzuki Swift. For absolute clarity, that is on the Bitan side of the station, not the Beiyi Road side.[/quote]
Haha. I had to do a double-take there. I thought that said:
[quote=“Omniloquacious”]
Those coming by MRT should turn left when they come through the ticket-barrier, and they’ll see me waiting in or by my ghey Suzuki Swift. For absolute clarity, that is on the Bitan side of the station, not the Beiyi Road side.[/quote]
I remember kate.lin expressed interest in coming along. Kitty expressed interest too, but I need to see if she has to work Saturday. I never have to work on these “makeup” days, so I always forget that others do.
Omni, can you PM me your cell phone #, in case I’m running a few minutes late (I’m not used to getting up at 6:30am on Saturdays…)
By the way, river-tracing shoes are required for this hike.
The place to get them (especially if you have big Western feet, because it’s the only place I was able to find them in my size) is MetrOasis, just up Zhongshan from the northeast corner of Zhongshan N. Rd. and Civic Blvd. Closest MRT is Taipei Main Station.
They cost about 350/pair for the ordinary slip-on MetrOasis brand that don’t cover the ankle. The ones that cover the ankle are about twice the price.
Ask for fang3hua2xie2.
Also, I’d recommend bringing a hiking pole if you have one - it can be useful in maintaining stability and testing water depth.
A very enjoyable hike - beautiful weather (in the morning, at least), great people, and exhilarating nature. Then the thunderstorm came, but by that time we were pretty much done.
We should do more of these in the coming weeks and months, guys!
Thanks, had a very enjoyable hike, and it was great meeting all of you that came. I’ll let you guys know as well if I get any hikes together with ShiDa folks.
Thanks to all, it was a great little hike and we both enjoyed it really very much. Great weather (the warm shower at the end was lovely too), wonderful scenery and a even better company made it a wonderful day.
Sorry for the inconviniences we might have caused and that we slowed the group a bit down too.
Stephan kept on talking about the hike the whole afternoon, so I guess for him it was a great event as well. Hope you all made it home well and I will appreciate when ever we can join again.
Maybe we even can have a hike close to here in Dongyuanshan area, no river tracing but a nice walk. Meeting in Sanxia, driving you guys up into the mountains (my and Karens car for the beginning…) and than hike up there.
