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| 歩いた稜線、左が金面山 The ridge line of our trek, Mt. Jinmian-shan (left) |
桃園大溪區の金面山は、
13数年前に初めて訪れて以来、いままで再訪していなかった。
今年の夏に白石山を訪れた時に、公共交通機関によるアクセスが以前とは大幅に改善されていることに気づいた。気軽にこの地区の山を訪れることができるようなった。そのような背景で、まだ歩いていないルートから白石山を登り、縦走して金面山からは前回とは異なるルートで下山した。金面山登山口へのアクセスは、残念ながら以前と同様で、公共交通機関はない。したがって登山口から約5キロほど徒歩で大溪にもどった。ただ、車で通ってしまうと気づかない景色や事物などに出会い、それは田舎道ハイキングととらえれば苦労とは感じない。メンバーが5名と少ないこともあり、ロープの岩場なども結構あったが、休憩を含めて14kmの行程を6時間20分と、予想より早く歩き終えた。
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| Hike from the south to the north |
Mt. Jinmian-shan (金面山) is easily identifiable due to its pointing peak. With an elevation of 677 meters it is regarded as the highest peak of the district. It has other names like "Bird Beak Mountain (鳥嘴山)" because it reminds people of a birds' beak, but mostly referred to as Jinmian-shan at least in hikers' circle. The author visited
this mountain 13 years ago for the first time, followed the ridge trail to Mt. Baishi-shan (白石山) and then back to Dashi (大溪) town via Datieliao historical trail (打鐵寮古道). I have since visited Baishi-shan a couple of times but not Jinmian-shan. "Platinum" of the above title is just a surface meaning of the Chinese word 白金 that is made up from the first character each of the two mountain names, of course not tangible platinum.
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| Location of our trek relative to Taipei in the north west |
I visited Jinmian-shan again by way of Baishi-shan. What is different from my last visit besides the direction of the hike, I had a company of four friends while I was alone on the last. That reveals that I have since made a lot of friends through hiking activities, which I treasure very much for my retired life. Activities with friends keep me busy, otherwise my life would be boring. This would give me a significant meaning of life as well as good motivations for regular exercise at my age of more than seventy.
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| At the summit of Jinmian-shan |
One of the reasons for this trek is that there has been a substantial improvement for access by public transportation. When I made the above mentioned hike 13 years ago, bus services were not so convenient as today. There were no such frequent services via the #3 national highway, and very few ones from Dashi (大溪) town to the trail heads. I had to walk all the way back to the town that time. We have now frequent #710 bus services between MRT Yongning station (捷運永寧站) and Dashi, and several services that go by major trail heads in the vicinity of Dashi. I realized this improvement on my last visit to
Datieliao trail and Baishi-shan this August.
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| #710 bus at Yongning bus terminus |
Even though the public transportation system has been improved, the physical distance between Taipei and Dashi has of course not been shortened. It still takes time. If you start from the center of Taipei, the MRT and #710 bus combined takes 80 minutes without connection time. So the early starting, the better. We took a #710 service leaving Yongning at 7:16, which arrived at Dashi bus stop 8:08. We missed a bus service passing Nangou (湳溝) stop and finally reached there by #5106 bus at 9:09.
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| #5106 bus leaving Nangou bus stop |
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| Our trek start from this intersection |
Our trek begins with a road ( 復興路三段15巷) on the other side of Beiheng highway (北橫公路) by which we have just come. We first walk this paved road for two and a half kilometers to reach our trail head. The road passes by a walkway (Baiji Tree-lined trail 百吉林蔭步道) that has ben converted for hiking from an abandoned section of the Beiheng highway. Our road then gradually gains height and passes by the head of Datieliao historical trail. It then descends to a reservoir called Baishipi (白石埤). We reached the head of Baishipi trail by the reservoir at 9:47.
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| Baiji trail head |
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| Datieliao trail head |
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| Baishipi reservoir |
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| At Baishipi trail head |
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| Going up a steep section |
The trail is in good shape. It is wide and easy to follow. We passed some steep sections and reach the edge extending from the main ridge of Baishi-shan at 10:03. There are several exposed rocks around and we have rest on them. While resting several trail runners passed by. This trail was designated as a part of their competition activity "Ball Breaker Run" route, which later proved to be extending to a point beyond Mt. Shisanfen-shan (十三份山). So we met dozens of runners until we got there.
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| trail run marker at the ridge corner |
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| Rock bed on the trail |
The trail soon merges another one climbing from Datieliao trail and keeps ascending. Rock bed shows on the trail and a wide panorama spreads on our sides under the beautiful blue sky. On our left lies a vast flat land behind a lower ridge of Mt. Shicuokeng-shan (石厝坑山 elevation 572m). Higher mountains are on our right and behind, including
Mt. Nanchatian-shan (南插天山 1907m),
Mt. Najie-shan (那結山 1520m) and many peaks behind them.
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| Coming out of woods |
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| Viewing over the flat land |
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| Author at the top of Baishi-shan |
We kept on climbing partly on exposed rock and reached the top (625m) at 10:30 . It is said that the name of this mountain Baishi (meaning white rock) was given because the exposed rock band on the ridge line reflects morning sunlight and looks white. Going down in a couple of minutes to reach a junction we had a break. While resting more runners were passing by.
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| Letting a runner pass by us |
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| Break at the junction with a strange shaped boulder |
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| Another runners coming |
Our trek continued on the ridge trail, passing a junction for Mt. Shicuokeng-shan, and small ups and downs came up one after another, including a rock wall of some height. At 10:52 a check point of the trail run activity showed up just before a climb to Mt. Shisanfen-shan. The steep climb brought us to the summit at 11:21. We have so far made good pace. A trail diverges to the valley from the summit. We kept on the ridge trail and up again on the top of 583 Peak in the middle of bamboos. We had lunch on a little circle opening of the summit.
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| Trail run check point |
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| Summit of Shisanfen-shan |
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| Having a lunch break at 583 Peak |
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| We took left while trail runner, right |
As we came down from the 583 Peak, a trail split to the right and the trail run route followed it, so no more runners from this point onward. In the past several years, trail run has gained popularity in Taiwan. It seems that several races are being held each year including international ones like this. We passed rather large ups and downs to reach a junction for Jinmian-shan at 12:17. This peak does not exist on the main ridge. We took a left trail to go down for Jinmian-shan.
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| Close to Jinmian-shan now |
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| Long steep descent |
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| Junction sign for Jinmian-shan |
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| Junction below Jinmian-shan peak |
At the bottom is a junction. We took the right trail to go up. There are two routes to the summit from the fork just above the last one and we chose the left to get to a junction where a trail from Mt. Jinshanmian-shan (金山面山 363m) meets. I came from Jinshanmian-shan on my last visit. The last stretch is pretty steep, passing a couple of rock walls. We got to the summit at 12:56. Trees have since overgrown and block all view from the summit. I remember viewing a golf course down at the bottom then.
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| Exposed rock face |
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| Steep climb to the summit |
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| Summit of Jinmian-shan |
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| Mountains visible on our way down |
We took another trail to down from the summit. It has fewer steep sections. Passing by the fork that we passed a while ago and further down to the another. We kept on the trail that would lead No. 1 trail head. This trail seems to be a remnant of so called Jinmian-shan historical trail (金面山古道) that was supposed to connect Sanxia (三峽) and Dashi before the waterway of Dahanxi river (大漢溪) was not developed a few hundred years ago. Our trail goes down in the valley and sees water stream in 15 minutes or so from the junction. As we further went down, the water sounded louder. At 13:41 the trail split small one on our right which goes along the right bank of the stream. In a few minutes we hit a trail coming down from Shisanfen-shan.
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| Back at the fork that we passed a while ago |
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| Keep going down |
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| Crossing a ditch, note a large concrete pipe on the left |
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| Junction of a little path on right |
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| Junction with a trail from Shisanfen-shan, a father and a son walking |
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| The trail head not far |
The valley bottom on our right was getting deeper as we advanced the trail. At 14:06 saw the No. 1 trail head. There are in total three trail heads for jinmian-shan. I went by No.3 on my last visit. That is located at the end of the road. Our last leg is a long walk of 5 kilometers along a paved road. There is no public transportation to trail heads of Jinmian-shan, just like 13 years ago.
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| No. 1 trail head |
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| On a country road |
It is OK to walk on such country roads where we encounter very little traffic. In fact we saw the mountain range that we had just trekked with satisfaction, and a small local primary school that is famous for turning big tops (Meihua primary school 美華國小). The final attraction was a short Weiliao historical trail (尾寮古道) down to Dashi. We arrived the bus stop by 15:30 and in a short while came our #710 bus back to Taipei.
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| Statute of a child turning a top at Meihua Primary School |
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| Walking down Weiliao Trail |
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| A soundly sleeping dog by the country road🤣 |
In total of both dirt trails and paved roads we walked approximately 14 kilometers, a half of which is paved roads. 6 hours and 20 minutes were spent for it, which was shorter than I expected. The total height we climbed was 700 meters while 850 meters descent. The route physical index 23. It was a fun hike. Autumn is definitely here and the weather is best for hiking those mountains around Taipei.
