The best way to escape the summer swelter is to be above it all -- at 1,500m or more. With mountains covering some 80 percent of the island, Taiwan is an excellent place to experience the possibilities of a vertical climate, provided you have the right gear. Most people think of getting back to nature as leaving technology behind, but it is technology that has lightened the load of outdoor enthusiasts and brought comfort to cold places. It's re-examined the way we do everyday things such as sleeping, eating, even brushing your teeth. Take the right equipment with you and roughing it isn't so rough. Here's a look at a few of the items available to campers who crave comfort.
Of course the most important thing you'll need on the trail is water, and while you'll no doubt come across a lot of streams spilling off Taiwan's mountaintops, they're not always as clean as they look. Microbes, bacteria, even viruses that live in the water, can have you running to squat behind a different tree every half a kilometer down the trail. Many campers carry iodine in their packs to kills these tiny vermin, but guzzling liters of iodine can be as harsh on your stomach as the bugs it kills. Better to have a water filter that can remove all these. First Need's Deluxe Water Purifier (US$90) does exactly this. It's the only non-chemical water purifier certified to the US Environmental Protection Agency standards for microbiological purifiers and can remove bacteria, cysts and viruses. It even removes unpleasant tastes and certain chemicals that can leave water tasting much worse than it looks when bubbling over moss-covered stones. It even won credit from Outside magazine recently, having garnered a "gear of the year award."
Another "gear of the year" award winner will come in useful once you've cleaned your water. Optimus Nova Multi-Fuel Stove (US$130) is one of the lightest stoves on the market and can burn most any kind of fuel, including kerosene, gasoline and diesel. I inquired at a local outfitter if the Nova would, at a pinch, burn, say, Kaoliang. The sales clerk was incredulous that I would take a match to Taiwan's flagship liquor but in the end said that, yes, it would probably work. If my own MSR International stove ever gives out, the Nova would be my stove of choice, but the MSR is another excellent choice in outdoor stoves -- and will likely be making meals a generation from now.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MANUFACTURERS
Once you're watered and fed the next obvious thing to do after a day of hiking is to sleep. A bed of pine needles under the stars sounds like the perfect way to spend the night but bugs, moisture, the possibility of rain, and things that go bump in the night can spoil a good night's sleep. Better to pack along a lightweight, two-person tent. At just over 2.6kg, The North Face's Roadrunner 2 is one of the lightest you can pack along. Like all North Face products, it's sewn to last, despite the fact that the entire top of the tent is a see-through mesh. The mesh roof makes it ideal for stargazing while keeping bugs away. It's also one of the few tents on the market to put a large door on each side, making getting in and out a breeze.
The rain tarp creates a vestibule on each side of tent, making it easy to store both occupants' gear. The Roadrunner is also one of Outdoor magazine's "gear of the year" award winners.
As far as the bed of pine needles is concerned, you'll be much happier on a Therm-A-Rest Performance Lite sleeping pad. Therm-A-Rest is the first and last name in sleeping pads and has been for years. They pioneered the self-inflating pad whose foam core expands when the air valve is opened.
It's pictured here stuffed inside a Therm-A-Rest camp chair; a tightly sewn piece of nylon with adjustable nylon straps that is one of the most comfortable chairs you'll ever sit in, outdoors or indoors. Perfect for unwinding by the campfire.
Of course you don't want to forget to brush your teeth before you go to bed.
While a toothbrush isn't one of life's absolute necessities, it is perhaps the most telltale indicator of how hardcore a hiker is. In an effort to shed as much weight as possible, many hikers simply go without a toothbrush and toothpaste. Others cut their brushes in half and take tiny tubes of paste like the ones found in hotel rooms. But to those for whom leaving their toothbrush at home is unconscionable, there is the Clever toothbrush (US$5).
Squeeze a tube of toothpaste into the receptacle end of the brush and close the cap and you have enough toothpaste to last a week. Tighten the cap and toothpaste squeezes out a small hole behind the bristles. At only two ounces, it's light enough to soften the most hardcore hikers. It's a clever enough design to have won Backpacker Magazine's Editor's Choice award this year.
Another Backpacker Magazine award winner is Garmin's RINO GPS two-way radio. RINO stands for "radios integrated with navigation for the outdoors" and this is one of the few global positioning units that doubles as a communications device. Not only will it direct rescuers to your location, you can talk to them while they're en route or listen to the ball game. You don't need to buy two of them to enjoy their two-way functionality. The RINO is compatible with any two-way radio up to 35km away. It offers GPS information within three meters accuracy and will even tell you your current and average speed, sunset and sunrise times, and trip time and distance. A GPS device may seem like a luxury, but it's one that can potentially save your life.
Lastly, one item that is definitely not a luxury is a good knife, and as most any outdoorsman will tell you, Leatherman makes the best. Anyone who hasn't seen the new line of Leathermans would do well to check out the Juice Xe6. It packs pliers, wire cutters, four screwdrivers, a saw, an awl, a diamond-coated file and corkscrew, a straight-edge blade and a serrated blade, can opener, bottle opener and scissors into a 190g design. If there's a task it won't perform on the trail, you're working too hard -- cool off and enjoy yourself.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist