Shan Ding Lu

A good road map and a bit of adventure can lead to some great discoveries. That is how we happened on the historic Jinshui camp mountain trail that once provided East-West passage through the Southern mountains of Taiwan. A day trip into the mountains three weeks ago seeded the idea to traverse this trail with the whole family. This weekend along with Joel and son Martin we made that happen.

We started the day early with our first stop the police station at Lili (力里) to get our mountain permit. Mountain permits are a hangover from Japanese occupation and KMT military era when tight control over access to the mountains was maintained. They seem hardly relevant these days and if we were to walk the trail from the Eastern side they are not required.

Thanks to a military radar post at the top of the mountain it is possible to drive a 20 km track to the trail-head at 1420 metres. This means you do the 16km trail on an almost continuous downward slope.

The trail is well marked and well maintained. In fact it is a popular mountain biking trail and with so many cyclists in Taiwan even remote trails like this manage to get a few adventures. This party of 5 was well equipped and had arranged a lift to the top so they could cycle over three hours to the Eastern side. They even had a helmet mounted video camera to record their thrillful ride.

We had a hiking perfect day with blue sky, no wind and no rain. Not even a misty afternoon cloud to dampen the day.

The recommended hiking time is 6 hours. At 3 hours out and 5 kilometers down we realised hiking with small ones would mean we could be finishing in the dark. Not a wonderful prospect but we pushed on.

The kids were fantastic. We tried to slow them down at the start as they were prone to running ahead then running back before running ahead again. Of course this exuberance withered and we had to do a little carrying and encouraging by trail end.

Perhaps thanks to the traveling noise-crowd that we were, we saw little bird or wildlife. Not even many butterflies,  though we did find this ungainly spider.

There are a number of old police stations along the route though little remains other than piles of rocks to remind you of the time when Japanese police and their families lived in this remote place. The sign at one settlement says 30 Japanese police and their families were killed during an incident in 1924.

We reached the Gu-alun suspension bridge at the trail end just after dusk. 8 hours after our start. This could have been an ugly end as there was still 4 kms of river bed to walk and wade before the village where we could arrange a lift to the Dawu (大武) train station. We were very fortunate when a motorcyclists arrived and said he would send someone to come and pick us up. So we all waited by the river, watched for stars and chased fireflies. A superb ending to a glorious walk.

The fellow who picked us up was a real character. He drove us past his house so we could meet his family, then past some friends place all while his minivan stereo played loud New York rap. He dropped us at the Dawu train station in good time to catch the 8:05 train back to Kaohsiung. We were all so exhausted we slumped on the floor of the train while Catherine enthralled a curious group of travelers with our day’s story.

Practicalities

This is an easy hike but you need to arrange transport at least to the Western trail-head. Lili is about an hour’s drive from Kaohsiung. Drive East along Expressway 88 then South on Freeway 3 to the Nanzhou exit. Head South on highway 1 towards Kenting then turn left at Pingtung county road 132 toward Lili.

From Lili follow the road past the police station for about an hour to reach the trail-head.

The 6 hours recommended time would be ideal for average hikers. If you have small children, add a couple more hours.

Though we had perfect hiking weather, the mountain pass section receives over 5200 mm of rain a year so odds are you may encounter some showers.

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Tags: Children, Mountains, Travel // 7 Comments »