2015年1月31日 新店待老坑山-貓空 Easy hiking for cherry blossoms & wine

Mt. Dailaokengshan viewed from cherry garden

台北周辺の桜だよりも多く聞くようになってきた。桜と言っても日本のソメイヨシノではなく、台湾固有種の山桜である。ソメイヨシノはピンクだが、山桜はずっと赤みが強い。また花が下を向いて咲くのが特徴だ。今年は、旧暦正月が遅い。2月18日が旧暦大晦日であるが、それを前にして忘年会（尾牙）が多くなる。そこで、花見をしてその後山仲間とお酒を山中で飲む、という趣向での山行を行った。天気は生憎であったが、本降りにはならず食事もお酒も楽しんで下山した。今回の山行は、今までに本ブログでも記述している場所なので、英語で記述する。今回参加者の半分が英語を話すメンバーであったこともある。

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We walk from the south side and over the mountain to Muzha

Hiking elevation profile

Formosan cherry blossoms

Taiwan's cheery trees are mostly native species Formosan cherry and come in bloom earlier than those other species like Yoshino cherry of Japan which are also planted in Taiwan. Formosan cherry blossoms are more reddish and facing downwards, also smaller than Yoshino cherry. We usually hear news of cherry blossoms as early as late January and it is true this year too. As we will have a lunar new year festive season soon, I organized an easy hiking for enjoying cherry blossoms and fun of drinking on a mountain. After I posted this plan on the Taipei Hiker Club of Facebook, several friends responded.

Turn left to Yushan Road

I planned the hiking route for having a drinking over dinner at a familiar restaurant at Maokong (貓空) in mind. Another point of consideration is to go by a cherry garden and it must be easy so we just went over a single low elevation peak, Mt. Dailaokengshan (待老坑山) where there is a cherry garden just beneath it. I once walked from Mt. Xiaoshishan (小獅山 Mt. little lion) of Xindian (新店) to Mt. Dailaokengshan but it is too long if we walk that way, so we started from Zhongshengqiaotou (中生橋頭) bus stop directly to the cherry garden. The restaurant that we had a dinner is conveniently located for it is not far from the Maokong cable car station but not as crowded and expensive as other restaurants nearer to the cable car station. You can take a cable car down in case you are too drunken to go down on foot.

A view from Yushan Road, Mt. Daqitou is just across the valley

Walk up on Yushan Road

All members meet at MRT Xindian station at 10:00. It is rather late for my usual hiking activity but today is just an easy one and good enough for that. 10 people show up including myself. The group consists of several nationalities, Japanese, Taiwanese, British, Costarican, Canadian and American, but the important thing is that everybody loves hiking. We then take a #650 bus to the terminus bus stop  Zhongshengqiaotou, which we reach at 10:50.

Tudigong stone shrine under a roof

We walk just a little forward, turn left for Yushan Road (玉山路) and go up a steep slope. There are many houses along the incline and we go up zigzag among them. As we climb for about ten minutes we come out of the residential section and the road goes along the top of a hill. The pavement is wet but luckily no rain falls.We meet only a couple of cars going by before reaching the summit. At 11:15, after approximately thirty minutes of walk, we come to a Taoist shrine Fudezhengshen (福德正神) . We just get in and take a look around. This shrine is rather large for Tudinggong  (土地公) and a seemingly local man is inside to help people to pray for the god. An original small stone shrine of Tudigong, the same kind that I see often besides old trails, is placed on an elevated stage.This suggests that this shrine receives a lot of attention and care from the local believers.

Cherry garden on the hillside, Mt. Xianjiyan is visible on the right in the distance 

Yourenshengu stage and a hut over there

We step out from the shrine, walk behind it and into a cherry garden on the slope of the other side. There is an open air restaurant along the path to the garden, which did not exist on my last visit a year and half ago. This must have been built lately for visitors to cherry garden. We go down a little among cherry trees. Only a part of trees have blossoms, apparently about one fifth of all. Obviously it is a little too early for cherry trees in this garden. You can enjoy more cherry blossoms probably in two or three weeks.

Climbing steps to Mt. Dailaokengshan 

We go back to the summit where the Taoist shrine is and walk on the road towards Yourenshengu (優人神鼓). A part of Muzha (木柵) is visible down in the valley over a bridge of the national highway No. 3 and Mt. Xianjiyan (仙跡岩) behind it. We soon come to a diversion point and take right. There is a sign besides it and you will not miss the right way. Up we go and the road passes by beetle nut trees.In about ten minutes we come to the bottom of a wooden-step hiking trail. We go up a little of the steps and up we come to the flat open space of Yourenshengu where a wooden stage is built on its left side. We hear drums beating from a hut over the place. Apparently drum practice is going on.We keep our climb on the steep steps. At 11:55 we arrive at the highest point of today's hike, Mt. Dailaokengshan (elevation 382m). A triangular survey stone is planted at the corner of a small area surrounded with trees.

Zhaghu trail

We start heading for our eating place, Dongshengyuan (東昇園) restaurant. The trail is in very good condition. After a short descent we come to a point to merge a footpath from left. If you turn left here, you can reach to an apricot garden where you can enjoy apricot flowers in late February. Going further down and the trail merges a path down to Zhangshan temple (樟山寺) and the trail gets a name of Zhanghu trail (樟湖步道) . We keep on this trail further to an intersection. If you go right here, then you can get down to Yinhedong cave (銀河洞); If you keep on it, then you go directly to Maokong cable station. We turn left here and go down steps. There is a stone paved trail on your right but this will ends up meeting our steps down there. We get down to Zhinanglu (指南路) section 3 and cross it to keep on the stone steps all the way down to Zhangshu trail (樟樹步道). Tee garden is spread over the hillside on both sides of the steps. Maokong is indeed a tee growing farm land. We turn right on the Zhangshu trail.

Walk down to Zhangshu trail

There are many interesting spots built along the Zhangshu trail, like an observation platform and a man-made pond with stone buffaloes in it. Lupine yellow flowers will come in bloom all over the garden around the pond in April. These spots were built to attract more tourists when the cable car service commenced. We climb a little over to Zhinanlu road and the trail ends there. We go on  Zhinanlu road to the side of the cable car station. We then turn left to go down to meet Chashan old trail (茶山古道) and then take this trail down to our Chinese restaurant. There we arrive at 12:50 and complete two hour walk from the bus stop.

A pond with stone water buffaloes in the water

Turn left to the restaurant

A couple of the members bring out their wines to share with all members. We have four bottles of wine, three red wine and one medicine wine. One of the members buys beer to share too. I also take out 116 proof Gaolianjiu (高粱酒). It is good to have alcohol drink on a dump and cold day like today. Our dinner starts with a sliced whole chicken and ends with hot vegetable soup. We have some ten kind of dishes. Everybody appears to be happy with it. We spend nearly one hour and half at the restaurant.

Walk down along Chashan old trail

At 14:30 four of the members leave to take a cable car and the rest of us go down on foot via Chashan old trail. Farmers used to walk on this trail to carry down tee leaves in the old days. The tail goes down to Muzha road by the side of Zhinan primary school (指南國小). Some sections of stone steps were slippery particularly on such wet days but they have made improvements over this trail since my last visit last year. Now it is much easier to walk on this trail even after you have a drink!  We reach Zhinan primary shcool at 14:40 and then walk along Zhinan road all the way down to National Zhengzhi University (政大) campus. We go through the campus to a bus stop just in front of the university main gate. At 15:15 we take a bus back after a short wait.

Zhinan primary shcool

This hike was a kid of party trip. The weather was dump and cold, not so ideal for appreciating cherry blossoms but we had good food over good wine. The actual walk took less than three hours while the total time including the lunch was 5 hours and half. We hiked 8 km including before and after the lunch. I am happy that everyone enjoyed this kind of event and I will probably organize similar one sometime again.