The late-night news last Saturday reporting snow on Hohuan Mountain (合歡山) was enough to get me heading south in the middle of the night toward Nantou County, eager to make snowmen and throw snowballs. Apparently, the news had the same effect on thousands of others as well.
Snow at elevations over 3000m is common in January and February, but most reliable snowfields lie on the highest mountain peaks, well out of reach of the average weekender. Hohuan Mountain, however, is an exception, lying on the Central Cross-island Highway within easy access of millions of people who generally prefer to experience the outdoors from the comfort of their cars.
Traffic hell
PHOTO: YOU TAI-LANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The rarity of snow means that when it falls, Hohuan Mountain is hotter than a McDonald's Hello Kitty Happy Meal. Everyone wants some, and driving through the night to avoid the throngs is futile.
The trip from Taipei to Hohuan Mountain, under normal circumstances, requires about six hours. The closure of sections of the Central Cross-island Highway (中部橫貫公路) due to the 921 earthquake last year means that the main route to Hohuan mountain is out of commission -- but there are three other routes.
Travelers can take Route 14 from Puli, the only road from the West, Route 8 up the Taroko Gorge (太魯閣) from Hualien in the east, and Route 7 through a narrow, hazardous valley from Ilan in the north. With most people coming from Taichung, Taipei and other west coast areas, Route 14 is the most traveled and arguably the easiest road to drive, though after the snow report, this route presented considerable challenges.
PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES
The first hint of trouble came in the village of Wushe (霧社), which has cleverly set up a makeshift toll booth to collect NT$50 from every motorist who passes through the town. The charge was nominally for access to the local park, which presumably no one had driven to Wushe to see.
To be fair, Wushe does enjoy dramatic views of a stunning valley that drops about 1000m to the Wanta Reservoir (萬大水庫) and of the majestic Wanta (萬大山) and Nengao Mountain (能高山) ridges. But Wushe did not have snow, so the perceptibly growing number of cars simply pressed on through the village.
Two minutes beyond Wushe at Chingjing Farm (清境農場), the traffic came to a halt. It was 9am, the altitude approximately 1700m. Hohuan Mountain was 10km away and at 3400m. Instead of throwing snowballs, people were now stepping out of their cars in T-shirts to feel the first warm rays of sun through the clouds. The prospect of snow at this point seemed slim.
PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES
Going nowhere fast
The road up the mountain was lined with stationary cars, mostly family sedans and jeeps, disappearing into the fog. Every 20 minutes or so, the line lurched 100m, tantalizing with the illusion that the traffic jam was caused by a broken-down car just out of sight around the bend. But round the next hairpin turn, the line of cars extended, unmoving further into the clouds.
The excitement of seeing snow was already enormous. Children whined loudly and some people, unable to wait, simply got out and began walking uphill. Unscrupulous drivers braved the left lane to zoom ahead of the crowds, very nearly opening the flood gates to an all-out, chaotic assault up the mountain. The timely appearance of police was all that prevented a complete degeneration of the traffic situation as they swiftly handed out fines to those cars busted in the left lane, to heartfelt cheers from more law abiding drivers.
PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES
The excitement reached fever pitch at about 11am, when cars with snowmen adorning the hoods came driving in the opposite direction. Almost without exception, the snowmen featured grotesquely exaggerated breasts or penises.
At Tsuifeng (翠峰), about 5km from the Hohuan Mountain pass, the Jenai township (仁愛鄉) police had blocked off the road, controlling the flow of traffic to the summit. The traffic controls have been in place for three years as a cooperative effort between the Taroko Gorge National Park administration and the Nantou County tourism bureau in an effort to ease the traffic situation that has plagued this area.
The final push
PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES
According to the Nantou County tourism bureau, 5,479 cars passed through Wushe on the way to Hohuan Mountain last Saturday, about four and a half times the average of about 1,200. On Sunday, 3,395 cars made the trip. The figure excludes local residents who are not charged at Wushe and cars approaching the mountain from the Taroko Gorge or from Ilan.
Police at Tsuifeng were allowing cars to climb the last 5km to the Hohuan Mountain pass which crosses the ridge at 3,200m in waves of about 30 cars staggered every 20 minutes. Progress was agonizingly slow. Finally, at noon, the police ushered through my group of cars which raced frantically upward into solid fog and plummeting temperatures.
Within minutes it came into sight -- snow. It lay in patches along the side of the road. Cars swerved wildly as drivers gawked and families leaned out of windows to get a closer look. The traffic got increasingly dense until the summit where there is a medium sized parking lot, restroom facilities and a lookout. Visibility was reduced to several meters in the fog and a biting wind had the temperature hovering at about 2℃. The patchy snow was about 10cm deep, but most had been trampled into the ground.
More impressive than the sight of snow, however, were the teeming crowds and the impromptu market set up in the parking lot to sell the usual sausages, corn on the cob and olen (黑輪, a kind of Taiwanese snack food). The shouts of the stall owners, whoops of joy from groups taking photos next to a trash can with snow in the background, a police siren, honking horns, rowdy groups barbequeing at the side of the road lent a distinctly circus-like atmosphere to the spot.
"Business is booming," said a stall owner surnamed Kong (孔). Indeed. The stalls had taken over the entire parking lot, jamming up traffic further and forcing the police to usher cars off the mountain as quickly as possible. Fathers were forced to stay behind the wheel while the children popped out to buy the obligatory snacks and for photo-ops and to toss a few snowballs.
One family, the Wus (吳) from Puli, had set out at 5am but had nevertheless not arrived until 9:30am, after what is normally a two-hour trip. "We got here early enough to park our car behind that stall. Now we can't get out," the father said, adding the final touches to a small snowman. The mother meanwhile was comforting her five-year-old son while picking snow out of his collar.
Unfortunately, the business and crowds generated huge amounts of trash that overflowed from the bins and eventually ended up whipping through the air in the intense wind. A look into the sky revealed at least 10 pink plastic bags darting about in the fog. Bags also dangled from pine trees like hideous Christmas decorations.
After a half hour of white-knuckle driving inch by inch in the ice and snow at the summit pass, visitors either turn around to return to Puli, or continue on Route 14 toward Tayuling (大禹嶺) and the intersection with the Central Cross-island Highway at the top of the Taroko Gorge.
Ironically, less than a kilometer beyond Hohuan Mountain, is the seemingly untouched Haha Mountain (哈哈山), which rises to just over 3,200m. Drivers can park by the side of the road, since traffic will likely have thinned out at this point. From the summit, which is an easy 20-minute climb, there are spectacular views of Hohuan Mountain, the rocky Chilai Main Peak (奇萊主山) to the southeast and Paiku Mountain (白姑大山) to the northwest, as well as a direct view down the Taroko Gorge.
For drivers with frayed nerves, Haha Mountain is nothing short of a godsend. Here one can take pictures without accidentally snapping a flying plastic bag, can do some bird watching, observe the ever-changing weather and even eat the clean snow. But you can't get olen or corn on the cob here.
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