The Green Trails trek, designed to promote a National Trail Network across Taiwan, met with some slight reverses during its second stage due to bad weather and slower than expected progress due to poor trail conditions.
On Monday, the 16 trekkers camped just outside the abandoned Paiwan community of Gulou (Kujiajiao in the Paiwan language), one of the largest concentrations of traditional slate houses still standing. There had been difficulty finding the trail out of Gulou, which was totally overgrown, and the camp was a good three to four hours walk away from Miaopu, the trail station that the trekkers had intended to stay.
Walking out on Tuesday, the trekkers were hit by the tail of a typhoon, which brought bursts of rain and made the last stage of the walk into Miaopu, with a number of steep descents and riverbed crossings, somewhat risky. Arriving just before noon, the pickups from the Taiwan Forestry Bureau had already left, and had to be recalled. Fortunately, while most of the trail over the past few days had been out of cell phone contact, a few locations on the spur of land in Miaopu allowed some phones to connect.
Much of the first stage had taken place along roads laid by the Japanese, based on trails connecting Aboriginal settlements. With the second stage, the trek moved to a more conventional climbing route, setting out from the town of Taiwu, about an hour's drive across the river valley from Miaopu. The late arrival of the trek and the unstable weather put the ascent of the Northern Dawu peak in doubt -- an ascent to just over 3,000m.
Staying over night at Kuigu Lodge near the trail head, it was finally decided to abandon any attempt to climb Northern Dawu, and trekkers used the time for the smaller climb of Retangzhen Mountain at only 1,702m. Bad weather again intervened, and trekkers failed to make the destination at Fawan, being forced back to the trailhead, where they camped for the night.
Although the second stage had been frustrating, with bad weather and wrong directions, and the missing of the first ascent of a major peak, the trek moved on, having to keep to a strict timetable.
From the trailhead, Forestry Bureau vehicles took the trekkers on to the trailhead for the walk to Haocha, another well-known center of Paiwan culture which is under threat of abandonment. From here the trek moved along the old Aboriginal roads crossing the mountains to Wutai, another center of Aboriginal culture, though one already extensively modernized. Wutai will be the staging point for continuous trekking stages along the Dona Forestry Trail, crossing the Zhuoshui River and taking the trekkers out of southern Taiwan.
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