Taipei Take 2. Mt. Zhongzheng kicks our butts

Nov 23 – Yangmingshan National Park

I’ll start this post by saying that nearly all of our suggestions for things to do in the Taipei area were given to us by Lisa, Mike’s lovely sister-in-law.  Her note said Yangmingshan National Park was a good place to go to hike and to get away from the city.  We loved that idea.  So, we got train directions to the park which happened to be just up a different street than the hot springs at Xinbeitou.  We didn’t find a map or really any information about the park since the gentleman at the information desk at Beitou station told us we could catch the train to Xinbeitou and find all of that out at the park’s visitor center.

 

We arrived at Xinbeitou and followed the signs for the park and the Mt. Zhongzheng Hiking Trail.  A quick stop at a 7 Eleven provided us with water, flax crackers (with real New Zealand butter in them we found out later.  Oops.), rain ponchos, and some nuts for what we believed was a 4 mile hike.  A sign at the base of the trail showed a large loop heading up to an overlook and back around.  Simple, right?  Right? 

The trail was a set of stone steps going up the side of the mountain through neighborhoods and temples.  We lost track of it several times as it would simply disappear.  We were supposed to follow the road in these places.  About a mile into our adventure, my Vibram Five Fingers, the toe shoes I wear for hiking and running, started rubbing a sore into the arch of my foot.  This didn’t bode well for the hike.  These shoes were an old pair and had been glued back together after a first thrashing.  Don’t think all of these shoes are bad on the feet.  I digress.   Mike suggested we either go back or go barefoot.  I was not about to wimp out on a 4 mile hike.  The shoes came off.

We walked up and up and up, stopping at a cool temple with gorgeous dragon reliefs on the front and a family shrine next door while we hunted for the trail.  Finally when it seemed that there was no way we weren’t to the mid-point of the trail, we reached what we thought was the lookout.  It was super windy.  Two golden era couples were lunching in one pavilion.  We took the other and ate our snacks. 

We continued across the parking area to the trailhead.  This was another entry point it turned out, not the mid-point at all.  The sign showed only the upper part of the trail with the view point partway up.  Any reservations I might have had about that were completely put out of my mind by the large warning sign at the trail head.  “Beware of Poisonous Snakes and Wasps.”  If you don’t know, I hate snakes.  They’re creepy and scary and slithery and soulless.  My feet were still bare and I hated the idea of stepping on one.  Mike plowed ahead and I followed apprehensively, watching both trees and ground for any serpentine creature. 

Soon we made it to the overlook which was a tower of sorts with an amazing view of the city and surrounding mountains.  It had posters of wildlife we might find in the area as well as indicators of what peaks were around us.  Pretty neat.  We continued our trip finally starting to head downhill a ways later after a minor freakout we had missed the trail.  It seemed to go on forever and ever.  Finally we pulled the camera out and examined the topo map to see if we had taken a wrong turn.  Our water was gone, we had a few crackers left and a small bag of nuts.  We decided to keep going and finally came to a road with another trailhead.  Now all we had to do was complete the loop.  We crossed the street and started down the stone steps.

A short ways into the walk, the trail became increasingly narrower with debris scattered all over the steps.  The trail looked barely used.  We pressed on.  I saw a flesh colored skinny snake and did a creeped-out cha-cha, tiptoeing away from it.  Mike said it was pretty, weirdo.  At some points trees had fallen across the trail and we had to drop down into the woods to go around them.  It seemed like we had been walking forever.  I was totally over walking barefoot through the jungle on a foot-wide, slippery trail by this point.  Finally we made it to a temple.  Checking the map, it seemed we were getting close to civilization once again.

Unfortunately, it still took us another hour from that point winding through neighborhoods looking for the trail, but we made it back.  The hike was 5 hours and my guess is 7ish miles.  We caught the train back to the hostel and grabbed food in an alley full of cats and poorly-mannered patrons.  Mine was good, but Mike was less than impressed.  A quick trip to the giant grocery store cheered him up.  We bought delicious walnut bread, mango wine bread, and fresh fruit.

Nov-24- Stone Bouldering Gym

Our final day we decided to do something we definitely can’t get enough of: rock climbing.  We found a local bouldering gym.  It was a great size and layout, clean, interesting, with a slackline.  They didn’t have much for rentals, so my shoes were at least a size small.  The system of route setting was different than any I had ever seen using small numbered, color-coded plaques to mark each hold.  Usually same colored holds or colored tape are used.  This made routes very hard to follow. 

Suddenly the power went out.  The place was well-enough lit by the natural light coming through the huge garage door at the front that we could still see, so we climbed until the numbers were too hard to follow.  By this time there were over 50 people in the small gym.  It was time to head back to pick up our stuff and head to the airport, but I was glad for the bit of exercise anyway. 

The trip to the airport was a little confusing, though mostly uneventful.  Mike found yummy veggie steamed buns at the terminal.  We tried to stay awake as much as possible on the flight home to stave off jetlag since we were essentially going back in time.  Jeff and Lisa picked us up at Seatac and took us home with them for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  It was a perfect ending to an amazing adventure.

The end.

Note: staving off the jet lag only worked for Mike who was put immediately on night shift when he got back.  I spent 4 nights getting almost no sleep. Yuck.  Worst jet lag ever!