Tapachien Mountain (
The mountain, which has been given names such as "the bucket" or "the wine bucket" because of its shape, is one of 51 in Sheipa National Park that rise more than 3,000m above sea level.
It is also sacred to the local Aboriginal tribe, the Atayal, who believe, depending on who you ask, that it is a kind of Garden of Eden for the tribe, or home to the souls of noble people.
Jean-Marc Compain, who organizes treks up this mountain, and many others, in Taiwan, thinks that this Aboriginal history is just one of the many appealing aspects of Tapachien Mountain.
As well as being near Taipei, it has varied landscapes; a mix of trees and grasslands and the end is rocky, Compain said. "All the way is a nice view."
The trail up Tapachien Mountain passes through woodland, grasslands and bamboo groves before ending up on the weathered rock fragments at the base of the main peak. The peak itself is a 140m wall of rock and impossible to climb without special equipment. It is also the most holy place for the Atayal, who tried to prevent people from climbing it until 1927, when a Japanese team made it to the summit.
A wooden, then iron, ladder was installed to allow people to get to the top, but it was removed several years ago following a number of accidents. It is still possible, however, to climb to the top of the similarly shaped Hsiaopachien Mountain, a satellite peak a few hundred meters away.
From the main coastal highway, it takes about three hours to drive to the trailhead at Madalashi, on the border of Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, at 1,800m above sea level. Trekkers require a guide and a Class A mountain permit, which must be presented to a number of police stations on the way.
The first section of the trek is a virtually constant, three-hour, uphill slog to 99 Refuge, so called because the huts and dormitories stand at an elevation of 2,699m. The trail moves from leaf-covered mud to rocks further up. Aborigines, wearing sandals rather than walking boots, carry supplies for the refuge in packs weighing up to 100kg past mountain guides puffing on cigarettes.
Because of the time it takes to drive to the trailhead and climb up to the refuge, most people stop there for the night. Those with time on their hands can relax in the evening, drinking kaoliang and chatting in the kitchen at the refuge, safe in the knowledge they can sleep until 8am and still have plenty of time to explore the many peaks further up the trail.
But those wanting to complete the trek in two days must go to bed soon after dinner. Walking the remaining 6km to the summit of Hsiaopachien Mountain -- and then the 10km back down again -- takes more than 10 hours and means starting at 2.30am.
The forest quickly thins out on the trail leaving Refuge 99, offering a clearer view of the surrounding mountains, over which clouds drift ghostlike in the moonlight. Despite the serenity of the surroundings, the large number of people ascending the mountain even at 3am causes traffic jams on the trail.
The majority of climbers adopt a slow, methodical pace.
"They walk for 20 minutes and then they rest for five minutes," Compain said. "A lot of them just want to look and take pictures of the mountain." Many of them, in fact, don't even try for Tapachien Mountain, content instead to view it from the vantage point atop I-Tse Mountain a few kilometers away at 3,297m above sea level.
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