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| Going up a gentle grade of the stone paved trail at Qingtiangang meadow |
数年前、台北近郊の山を熱心に歩いていたころ、陽明山の山道や古道はよく訪れた。その後、活動範囲を広げるにつれ、近場の山はあまり行かなくなっていた。今回は、近日中に大勢のメンバーを連れて歩く予定があり、その下見もかねて秋の陽明山の草原を求め、気楽な山行に行ってきた。登山人口が増えるにつれ、この周辺の山も新しい道が造られていて、数年前と比べると地図上に多く表示される。今回は、陽明山国家公園の官製山道である冷水坑から竹篙山へ歩き、そこからは土の古道を歩き、草原を横切りまた二つの山を越えて至善路へと下った。
陽明山の非官製道路は、マーカーリボンや道しるべは多くない。最近手入れされたところは、それでもまだそうした手助けが多いが、まったくなく地図との確認が必要なところも多い。その意味では、あまり経験のない登山者は苦労するかもしれない。竹篙山から內寮古道へ降りる間にはマーカーリボンはあったが、道しるべは全くなかった。また內寮古道から瑪礁古道へとつなぐ新しい道もあった。また、その他にも新しい道があった。歩きそのものは、下りがメインで、休憩も時間をとり、楽な山歩きでもあった。
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| A grass field near Mt. Zhugaoling |
Yangmingshan National Park (陽明山國家公園) offers a large variety of hiking routes, which attract a lot of hikers. The park's official trails are very good with stone pavements and very complete signage. However nice they are, the scope of the areas that the official trails cover is limited. The official trail system does not cover those historical trails and some obscure peaks. Active hikers are not just satisfied with that and naturally seek for more interesting routes, which resulted in finding and clearing those abandoned historical trails and open new ones as well. The hike of this time is to follow official trails as well as non-official ones to go through open grass fields and some peaks that the official trails do not reach.
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| Walk from north to south |
I was very keen to hike those trails several years ago. In the end I covered almost all existing trails, official and non-official alike, in the Yangmingshan park area, and left for mountains of other places in Taiwan. More and more hikers have come into the areas of non-official trails of the park since then. During this hike I came across new trails made open since my last visit. The motivation behind this visit is to find out whether the trails have gone through any change and if so, what after all those years. It is interesting to find out how trails have evolved.
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| A long queue to Xiao 15 bus |
This is a week day but a long queue has already been formed for Xiao 15 line (小15線) bus when I arrived at MRT Jiantan (劍潭站) bus stop around 7:20. A few of our members are standing in line ahead of me. When our bus of 7:40 service comes, we are not able to get aboard. The bus is a small one of twenty seats and a dozen or so of standing positions. We have to wait for another twenty minutes for the next service. We get on the next one without problem and head for Lengshuikeng (冷水坑). Our bus go through the city streets and climb Yangde boulevard (仰德大道). We reach Lengshuikeng at 8:40.
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| Head of Qingtiangang trail at Lengshuikeng |
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| Milk pond |
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| Suspension bridge |
To my surprise, a group of six hikers are there waiting for us to join. We have now 16 members. There are more clouds than blue patches but it looks no chance of raining today. It feels a little chilly when wind blows through. Autumn is also here on this low altitude mountain. We start at 8:48 for our first leg on the trail to Qingtiangang (擎天崗) meadows. We stop by a viewing platform of milk pond (牛奶湖), which is a big hole where white sulfuric water is deposited and looks like milk. If you drink this milk, you will surely get very sick, though.
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| Lengshuikeng ecological pond and Mt. Qixing-shan behind |
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| Observation desk of Mt.Jixinlun (雞心崙) |
The trail soon pass over a suspension bridge and make a right turn. It goes down and pass by clean water pond called Lengshuikeng ecological pond (冷水坑生態池). The trail leads up to a hill with an observation deck. You can identify a round top of Mt. Zhugao-shan (竹篙山), our first destination in a distance. On the other side stands Mt. Qixing-shan (七星山) showing its mostly grass covered belly with patches of green tress here ant there.
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| A view from the deck, Mt. Zhugao-shan on the right |
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| Qingtiangang meadow |
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| A barn looking resting house |
We keep on the stone paved trail, which goes down for a while, passing a bridge and a junction and up again to the meadow of Qingtiangang. A long and new wooden fence encircles the entire field. The fences have been enhanced since a fatal accident a few years ago, in which an elderly woman was killed by a caw. The area including Qingtiangang used to be a meadow for dairy production several decades ago. Now such a business has long gone, but water buffalos and cows are roaming on the meadow and surrounding valleys and hills. Visitors have to pay attention to them how docile they may look. They are large animals. At 9:30 we come to a placed called Taiyanggu valley (太陽谷, Sun valley) where a a resting house is built to look like a barn and we have a rest there.
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| A view from the summit of Mt. Zhugao-shan |
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| At the summit of Mt. Zhugao-shan |
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| We will get into this tall grasses |
A gentle rolling meadow under a blue sky is really nice. We make a more ascent to a junction and take right to Mt. Zhugao-shan. The moderately ascending trail leads us to the summit, which we reach at 10:00. With an elevation of 830 meters, this mountain is not that tall, but its location gives you a wide view. On the north west sits a massive Mt. Qixing-shan. From its summit a gentle ridge comes down to where Mt. Shamao-shan (紗帽山) raises its twin peaks. In between Mt. Guanyin-shan (觀音山) of Bali (八里) claims its exitance. The whole Taipei basin spreads out on our west side. We are lucky to have a good time under a such nice weather.
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| Going through a sea of grasses |
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| Getting out of tall grasses |
The official trail ends here. We now get onto a dirt non-official trail between tall grasses. The track is pretty clear though you have to spread grasses as you go through. It passes some locations of bushes and come out onto an open grass field with tall silver grasses gently swinging in wind. Beyond the endless sea of grasses lies
Mt. Dalunwe-shan (大崙尾山) and the Taipei 101 building sticking out its top high among its neighboring low-rise buildings/
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| Overlooking the metropolitan Taipei |
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| Enjoying Yangmingshan's autumn |
It seems that more grasses occupy the fields compared with my last visit several years ago. It may be some relation with buffalos' roaming. The activity of the cows and buffalos has been limited by the extended fences and they cannot come to this area for feeding, thus more grasses can grow high and dense. We see no their dungs, which are easily witnessed at other places. We roam down on the field for about 35 minutes and reach a rather large meadow near Mt. Zhugaoling (竹篙嶺, elevation. 770m). It is a good place to have a rest. No window is felt if you sit by a bunch of brasses. After all our hike today is an easy one and we are here to enjoy this crispy autumn.
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| A small open filed with pine trees |
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| Following the trail in woods |
We take off at 10:54 and soon enter a forest. The open field is over. In a few minutes we come out into a small open field with a nicely shaped pine trees. The trail again gets into a forest of low and thin trees. At 11:12 we hit another small meadow where a triangulation marker of Mt. Zhugao-shan south peak (竹篙山南峰 elev. 714m) is placed at its corner. This small meadow is encircled by trees. We feel no wind here. This is a good place for lunch break.
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| A small meadow of Mt. Zhugao-shan south peak |
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| Passing over the dam to the other bank |
Completing a half hour break, we resume our hike for Mt. Xinjunrou-shan (新圳頭山). The trail gets a litter steeper and meets Neiliao old trail (內寮古道) at 12:00. We follow the trail down to a small recently-built dam on our left. There is a newly opened short cut to Majiao old trail (瑪礁古道), which did not exist on my last visit a few years ago. More and more hikers come in this area and open up new trails. We climb a short steep slope and get onto the Majiao trail. This trail goes over a ridge from Qingtiangng and ends at Qingfengting (清風亭) pavilion.
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| If there is no marker, nobody would notice this summit |
The track is pretty clear proving that this is well traveled. The grade is pretty gentle, mainly descending with short climbs. We pass by a unimpressive peak of Mt. Xinjuntou-shan and reach the Qinfengting at 12:52. We have a rest under the roof. Some members decide to quit and leave for a bus stop of Pingding Gujun (坪頂古圳站). The remaining 11 of us head for our next peak
Mt. Ewei-shan (鵝尾山).
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| Qingfengting Pavilion |
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| Viewing Mt. Qixing-shan and Mt. Zhugao-shan (front) |
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| The summit of Mt. Ewei-shan |
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| Going down a steep slope |
The trails around Mt. Ewei-shan were cleared by Lantiandui (藍天隊) volunteer hikers a few months ago and the track is very good. It diverges from Dajitou stone paved trail (大崎頭步道) only in a short distance from Qingfengting. It soon pass by a farm land where Mt. Zhugao-shan and Mt. Qixing-shan are visible. The incline is pretty moderate and we reach the summit (elev. 523m) in just ten minutes from the junction. It is surrounded by vegetation and no view at all. We follow the trail by bamboo woods on our right and come to a junction showing that there is another stone marker of the mountain. So we make a short round walk to the marker and back.
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| Coming down to a paved road |
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| A very long stepped trail |
The trail gets pretty steep from the junction. At some places are fixed with ropes. The steep descent ends at 13:51 to a paved road. A friendly dog with front left leg severed shows up from nowhere. He seems to be a dog of a local farmer. There is a shortcut to a paved road below. Passing a junction of the paved road, stone stepped trail opens its entrance. It is long and going pretty straightly down. It crosses the paved road and continues down. We get down to Zhishan road (至善路) at 14:04 where our bus stop of Xiao 18 line (小18) stands nearby. We enjoy beer while we are waiting for a bus. Our bus comes at 14:30 and we get aboard for home.,
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| Trail head on Zhishan road |
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| A friendly handicapped dog |
This hike was intended to be very easy. It turned out to be just like that. We walked 7.8 kilometers taking five and a half hours including rests. The total ascent was merely 200 meters while the descent 685 meters. The route physical index is only 14. The route was mostly descending. We had a nice time on meadows and enjoyed a beautiful autumn mountains.
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