2019年6月15日 陽明山系大屯溪古道 - 溪畔小屋 Datunxi old trail, cool hike along the stream

大屯溪 Datunxi river

9年前に台湾の山、特に台北付近の低山を頻繁に登っているときは、暑い夏でもいっていた。それから年月が経ち、こうした低山は公共交通機関で行くのが不便な場所を除き、ほぼ歩きつくした。さらに、3000メートル級の高山や1000メートルを超える中級山を登り始め、今は暑い時期は高い山に行くようにしている。6月も半ば、今年は雨が多いせいで予定の中級山行も中止になった。そこで、数日の雨のあと、予定登山キャンセルで空きができた今回、下りメインでゆっくりとした山歩きを行った。

Crossing Datunxi stream

小觀音山や大屯溪周りの山々は、ボランティアのおかげで既存の道は歩きやすい道になり、さらに新しいルートも切り開かれている。そうした新しいルートも含めほぼ全部歩いている。今回は、すべて歩いているが、沢沿いで涼しくなおかつゆっくりすごせるように企画した。週末であることもあり、筆者も含め17名のハイキングとなった。このルートは、実は2015年7月に一度歩いている。その記録はブログに載せていないが、この地域の過去の記録は日本語なので、今回は英語で記述します。

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Walk from south to north

Start at the higher point

If you stand in the center of urban Taipei, let's say the intersection of Zhonxiao East road (忠孝東路) and Xinsheng South Road (新生南路) on a sunny and clear day and look north, you will notice a mountain with a few communication towers on its top. That is Mt. Xiaoguanyin (小觀音山). It has a wide body with a few peaks. The highest one, the main peak has the elevation of 1,066 meters and a few radio communication facilities like civil aviation communication facilities, military radars are placed around it.

By the ruin of Yamno ie (mountain hut)

There is a paved road leading to the facilities which need maintenance and the road is for the purpose. Except this paved road, there is no official hiking trails, which you can enjoy at the other places in the Yanmingshan National Park (陽明山國家公園) to which Mt. Xiaoguanyin belongs too.  The trails are basically old trails of local people or ones that hikers have opened for their enjoyment.  One of the old trails is Datunxi old trail (大屯溪古道) in the valley and its connecting trail going over the ridges of Mt. Xiaoguanyin. That is the one we hiked this time from the high location to the bottom of the valley.

Ridge line of Mt. Xiaoguanyin viewed from near its west peak

As summer draws near, hiking over low altitude mountains near Taipei would become an endurance test of heat. I would go to mountains of higher altitude for the hot season. I planed this hike, albeit my preference for summer hiking, because a plan to go to higher mountains had to be canceled due to bad weather and a blank popped out. I could not but help to go out and hike some place easy and not so hot to ease off frustration. Datunxi old trail goes along a stream of cool and refreshing water and if we go from the ridge of Mt. Xiaoguanyinshan to the bottom of the valley, the total ascent is not that big.

Clear and cool water of Datunxi river

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For this hike is an easy one, the starting time is not so early. I posted in my SNS page that we would meet at 9:00 Yangmingshan bus terminus #108 bus stop. It turned out that many of the participants went earlier to the hiking start point, near Anbu bus stop (鞍部站) and only two of us show up at 9:00. We take a #108 bus and a fifteen minute ride takes us to Anbu bus stop. We walk a little over to the car parking nearby to find out many people are waiting for me.  After we have another member, who comes by taxi in another ten minutes or so, as she missed the bus, we start off for a trail that begins by the edge of the parking area. Mt. Xiaoganyin west peak and Mt. Beizhuzishan (北竹子山) are visible above on the ridge against clear blue sky, which is very pleasing after five consecutive rainy days.

The trail gets into Usawa cane bushes

Climbing in the tall canes

The trail goes down first to reach the bottom where a ruin of a hut stands. The ruin used to be a hut for hikers (山の家, Yamano ie), which was build for Datun National Park (大屯國立公園) in the Japanese era, the forerunner of the present day Yangmingshan National park. Now only stands a tall stone-piled chimney and foundations. A trail diverges down along the valley. We take a right trail to start ascending.  We pass a junction and the trail gets more grade. We get in a section of tall usawa canes (箭竹) in about twenty minutes from the hut ruin.

At the vantage point

A wide and clear view from the vantage point

At the west peak

On the steep way up, we come across a vantage point on our left. We just get up on it and a wide view spreads in front of us. Big Mt. Datunshan (大屯山) stands just there and smaller peaks of Mt. Caigongkeng (菜公坑山) and Mt. Zhentou (枕頭山) next to Mt. Datunshan like servants. The parking area where we were a while ago is down below on the foot of Mt. Datunshan.  Getting back on the trail and we keep ascending a steep incline between usawa canes for a few minutes and get on the trail going over the ridge.

Viewing the ridge of Mt. Xiaoguanyin at the junction to Datunxi valley

Going down to the valley

We turn left and soon come to the peak of Mt. Xiaoguanyin west peak. We keep on the ridge trail, passing big rocks and come to a junction at 10:35. Nice breeze blows over and it does not feel hot at all. Facing north and viewing over the valley of Datunxi (大屯溪), a long ridge extends on our right with the Main peak and the North peak of Mt. Xiaoguanyin. Usawa cane covered surface of the mountain with no forest gives you a false feeling of standing on high mountains. If you look further over the valley, you can make out the ocean in distance.

going down a steep section

The peaceful mountains and valleys here once was a battle field a century and twenty years ago. After Japanese took over the island in 1895, resistance organizations fought with the Japanese force. One of the resistance groups led by Jian Dashi (簡大獅) lost their battle and  fled to the hills and valleys of Yanmingshan area, which was remote and not easily accessible at the time. Bones of unknown men were discovered in Qiedongkeng (茄冬坑), a valley just beyond the ridge next in 1930's when a gold mining boom brought miners there. The resistance fighters might as well have come in the Datunxi valley for hiding.

Passing a small stream on the leveled-out section

Junction of two trails coming down from the ridge

At 10:54 we start decent on a steep trail down to the valley. We pass several sections with ropes. Rain soaked mud surface is pretty slippery. You grab tall canes on the side and carefully go down. In a half hour the trail gets level and goes along the slope side, passing two small streams.  We come to a site of abandoned charcoal kiln. Local people used to make charcoal in the mountains and the trails were opened for such purposes. We keep on the flat trail for another ten minutes and come to a junction at 11:44.

A merging point of two steams

The sound of water is now loud. We go down to the merging point of two streams. A group of hikers walking in front of us have rest there, while we keep on our way down. We see a water fall down in the valley on our left. Water is plentiful as a few days rain is now flowing down. Water flows down over some sections of the trail, where usually no water is running. We come to our resting place at 12:00. This is a flat area just by the stream and a little water fall, a very nice resting place for rest.

Flat place by the steam for lunch break

Two members bathe in the cool water

We have a long lunch break. I take out a stove and boil water for refreshing coffee, which is rather rare in my hiking activities. Two of the members jump into the pool next to our resting place. They say water is very chill. Well it must be so. We resume our hike at 13:00, one hour later we came here.

Stream crossing

The valley gets wider

The trail crosses the stream several times.  The water is rather deep and we carefully cross it. Wellington boots are very handy for such crossing. The trail goes from the left bank to the right bank and back again as we cross the stream.  At 13:08 We pass a junction for climbing back to the ridge by Qingfengling peak (清風嶺), which you go up by a very steep incline.  As we go down, the valley gets wider. At 13:36 we come to a junction and take left.  If you keep on the trail by the main stream, you will come out to Sanbanqiao (三板橋). We will head for Xipan hut (溪畔小屋) on Xiaotang old trail(燒炭古道). This trail is much grassy and narrow. Obviously fewer hikers take this route.

We take left at this junction

Going by a small canal

The trail goes high above the left bank of Datunxi river. After seeing a small canal for agricultural irrigation, we come out to an open filed. It leads to a paved road below and we come out onto it at 13:54. Checking my map, there should be another trail leading to Xipan hut (meaning a hut by a stream). I go back up to the trail and find a narrow path leading to the woods on my right. We start ascent on this trail for about 10 minutes. After it levels out, a junction shows up and we take a right trail down. If you keep on the ridge trail, you can go back to the west peak where we were in the morning. The trail goes by abandoned rice terraces and reach the hut after passing another junction.

Going by an abandoned terraces

Xipan small hut

After a 20 minutes of break at the hut, we begin the last leg of our hike at 14:35. We first cross a stream of big volume water. Luckily there are big rocks in line above water, and no one needs to get boots wet. We follow a weedy narrow trail for a while and get onto a wide dirt road, which is also weedy. It climbs for a while and then goes down. It turns to be a paved road and we come out into a village of Caigongkeng (菜公坑) at 15:00. The peaks of Mt. Zhengtou and Mt. Honglushan (烘爐山)are now pretty high. The were below us when we were on our way up to Mt. Xiaoguanyin. We follow paved roads down, taking a few turns and reach Beixinzhuang (北新庄) bus stop at 15:30. Our #875 bus to MRT Danshui station (淡水站) will come in forty minutes.

The last stream crossing

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The activity lasted 6 hours, in which more than two hours were rest and break. The total distance was 8.7 kilometer with 400 meter aggregated ascent and 1000 meter descent. It was a fairly easy hike. We sweat on our way up the hill, but it was not that hard. We feel breeze and the temperature in the valley was comfortable. The water was even chilly. The trails are clear except the last part. If you only follow Datunxi old trail, it is an easy hike. I rate this route level 2 out of max 5.

Mt. Zhentou (left) and Mt. Honlu viewing from Caigongkeng village