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| 蝙蝠山山頂 Bianfu-shan summit |
台北近郊の山は、アクセスが簡単で手ごろなハイキング対象である。しかし高度が1000m足らずの亜熱帯台湾の山々は、夏は暑くて大変だ。一方天気のよい冬日には、とてもよいハイキングができる。台北をはじめ台湾北部の冬は雨が多い。好天が少ないが、それに当たれば空気も澄み、遠くまで望める。気温も十数度から二十度で、これまた登山にはもってこいである。今回は、まさにそのど真ん中の山行であった。
今回歩いたルートの半分は、数年前の三月に歩いている。その後ご無沙汰であった。去年末から今月にかけて、ボランティアがこの山域に入り、草を刈りロープを取り付けるなど、道の整備が行われた。登山人口が確実に増え、歩くだけのハイカーだけでなくボランティアのハイカーも増えている。そのおかげで、多くのルートが道探しや藪漕ぎの苦労なく歩けるようになっている。当山行の山は標高300m台の山々である。しかし蝙蝠山山頂には、二階建ての展望台が設けられていて、その上からは実に広い展望ができる。冬の山林を歩くだけでなく、景観も楽しめる。
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| ＠登山口土地公 |
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Since I started regular hiking in 2011, hiker population has substaintially increased. You can find this increase by checking the number of hiking groups on social medias like Facebook, or feel it in the mountains by meeting so many hikers on your way. This is a welcome phenomenon as people find hiking enjoyable and good for their physical as well as mental health. As the whole hiker population grows, more hikers are involved in voluntarily maintaining trails that are not done by governmental authorities. This gives the hiking population more routes to hike and enjoy.
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| Hiked counter-clockwise |
The route that we hiked this time is exactly a series of trails that volunteers did a clearing job very recently. The location is south west of Shuangxi (雙溪) town. The mountains there are not high: The highest one that we climbed is just 252 meters in elevation. As low as they are, we passed through many ups and downs, which made our hike physically challenging. This kind of mountains are not a good hiking destination for summer, but under a sunny sky of winter we enjoyed it very much. The northern Taiwan sees a lot of rainy days in winter, and such a nice and clear sky was not easy to come by.
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| Location of the destination relative to the ocean and the Northeast Corner |
We started our hike from Shuangxi train station and came back to the same station. Our hike followed a circular route, visiting Mt. Meizhuxi-shan (梅竹溪山 elev. 65 meters), Mt. Mazhukeng-shan (麻竹坑山 114m) and Mt. Bianfu-shan (蝙蝠山 252m) in this order. It was just a little more than 10 kilometers in length and about 600 meters in total height gain. Yet we spent more than six hours to complete although all of our members are regular hikers and physically fit. It proves that it takes your hard work for this hiking route.
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| Beautiful morning at Shuangxi station |
We took a Ziqiang (自強號) express train #272 from Taipei. It left Taipei station at 7:25 and reached Shuangxi station at 8:37. Today is Tuesday. This train serves as a kind of commuter train for people to ride for work or school, so it was full of passengers until it reached Xizhi station (汐止站). As I stepped out from the train, I found many hikers alighting. It turned out that another large group of hikers were heading for the same route as us. Before they assembled we left the train station at 8:47 and headed for our first destination through a town street.
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| An old blacksmith shop still in business |
As we turn right from the street of shops, we cross a bridge and see a clear view of mountains of
the Northeast Corner (東北角) like Mt. Canguangliao-shan (燦光寮山) over the houses. It sure will be a nice hike today under a clear blue sky. We pass through another street of shops, come out of the town and enter Shuang-Tai Road (雙泰產道). It took only a few minutes to come to our trail head where a Tudigong Shrine (土地公) shrine stands. The small stone house in which a Tudigong deity is enshrined looks old but the whole shrine that covers the deity house looks new and is kept tidy, implying that local people are devoted to this Tudigong.
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| Getting out of the town street |
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| Inside the shrine |
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| Trail wide and clean |
The trail starts just behind the shrine. It follows a ridge coming down all the way from Mt. Tiaogukeng-shan (苕谷坑山). The trail is wide and clean as volunteers worked on it recently. In a few minutes we pass another shrine. This is bigger than the first one but looks rather neglected. A nice and wide trail goes down and up to Mt. Meizhuxi-shan at 9:22. It is only a little hump with a marker stone.
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| Another Tudigong shrine |
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| Meizhuxi-shan summit |
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| Steep section to climb |
The trail presents several steep grades, some of which are fixed with ropes to hold onto. When we have come up for about 40 minutes a nice view comes in sight. Against cloudless blue sky, peaks of the Northeast Corner stand clear far behind the hills in their front. At 10:06 a tall electric transmission tower shows up. This is a junction to Mt. Mazhukeng-shan. Five years ago,
we came down from Mt. Tiaogukeng-shan and passed this point, but did not visit Mt. Mazhukeng-shan.
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| Spotless blue sky and peaks of the Northeast Corner |
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| Junction for Mazhukeng-shan (right) |
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| Trail is steep and slippery |
There is a deep gap between here and Mt. Mazhukeng-shan. The trail goes steeply down and is very slippery. Thank God, brand new ropes are fixed all along the grade. At the bottom of the steep grade, an abandoned house remains just with stone walls. The trail further goes down to the bottom where former terrace paddies remain. Passing a wider valley, the trail comes up with a steep ascent to the summit. It took us about 35 minutes from the junction to reach the summit.
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| Abandoned house |
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| Junction on the main ridge |
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| Coming down to the valley bottom |
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| Junction by the bridge, right trail to Tiaogukeng-shan |
Beyond the bridge over a stream in the valley, there is a junction. To the right it leads to Mt. Tiaogukeng-shan, for which we headed from here five years ago. We take left to go along the stream and soon come to a mouth of electric tower maintenance path. This trail is a kind of short cut to connect to Baierjie historical trail (百二階古道) over a sub-ridge. We climb the trail, passing a tower. The trail goes up a little and down to another abandoned house, which is bigger than the one we encountered in the morning. It makes me wonder how such a house was built in this remote place. The life must have been very hard in those old days.
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| Passing by an electric tower |
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| Another abandoned house |
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| Down to the creek |
The trail goes further down, passing another tower then down to the bottom to cross a creek. This point is just by the Shuang-Tai road. The Baierjie historical trail starts from here. One of the members leaves for the train station via Shuan-Tai road, while the rest of us start climbing. The historic trail once was a main passage for people of Tainan (泰安) village to travel to Shuangxi town and back. After the current motor road of Shuang-Tai was built in 1979, this trail was left untraveled.
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| Baierjie, moss covered "102" steps |
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| More steps to follow |
There is a story related to this trail. In 1971 a freshly-graduated young teacher was assigned to teach at Taian primary school. On her way to assume the assignment she travelled on foot to Taian. She found the trip too tiring and the place so remote that she decided to quit the teaching job there. There is a mountain called Quit-Job peak (辭職嶺) nearby that she went over, and presumably the young teach passed this historical trail as well.
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| Flat section above the steps |
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| Tiaogu waterfall |
The name Baierjie means 102 steps. The trail is indeed fixed with many stone steps in row. But "102 steps" probably just means that there are so many steps to count, not exactly 102. As the steep section of steps ends, the trail turns rather flat and finds a water fall. (Tiaogu waterfall 苕谷瀑布) at 13:15. This water fall is very tall but little water. We climb a short steep ascent as a last part of the trail and hit the Shuang-tai Road on top.
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| Come out to Shuang-Tai road |
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| Trail head for Bianfu-shan |
The trail head for Mt. Bianfu-shan is just short away down the motor road. We take this trail for our last peak to visit. This is also a electric tower maintenance path and in good condition. It gradually goes up to pass a tower and then down along a ridge. It finally leads to the summit of Mt. Beianfu-shan. We reach the summit at 13:50. On a wide stone covered square of the summit stands a three story tower. A statute of Chang-kaishek (蔣公像) sands on its top. Also placed there is a communication antenna.
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| Follow the ridge trail to Bianfu-shan |
Everybody goes up to the top of the tower and enjoys a 360-degree unobstructed view! You can see the ocean beyond Fulong town (福隆). If you look for the opposite direction, Shuangxi town lies just below and the peaks of the Northeast Corner far beyond. It instantly makes you forget our hard work so far. While we are enjoying the view, the large group catches us up and makes the tower crowned.
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| A view from the tower top |
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| Another view towards the north |
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| Another steep and slippery descent |
There are two routes to go down. One is a concrete stepped trail and the other is a recently maintained dirt path. We leave the summit at 14:17 and take the latter route to down. This trail is steep and slippery too. We finally come down to an abandoned wide dirt road, which leads to a large house, Taihelou (泰和樓). Currently nobody lives in the house. The impressive Chinese style house is said to have 300 years history. It is a so-called Siheyuan (四合院), four-side enclosing houses with an open court in the center. The houses are connected each other to form a square viewed from above.
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| A wider dirt path |
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| Taihelou |
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| Onto the Shuang-Tai road |
We washed our dirty boots in front of the Taihelou and walked our last stretch along the Shuang-Tai Road down to the Shuangxi station. Going back by the same route of this morning we reached the train station at 15:05. Our train came at 15:19 and we rode back to Taipei.
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| Back to Shuangxi Station |
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Our hike covered 10.1 kilometer for 6 and 15 minutes including breaks. The total ascent was 620 meters, the route physical index 20. It was a fun hike, indeed.
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