Autumn walks refresh

There is no snow to be found in September, but Snow Mountain (雪山) is one of the better hikes on offer in Taipei's backyard. If you have three days and a lot of energy, there's nothing to keep you from enjoying the sunrise atop Taiwan's second-highest peak.

Now is a good time to go, too, with October approaching and typhoon season on the way out. Arguably, the only better time is in March and April, when the winter freeze is gone and spring shows its colors.

Hike between now and December, however, and you can be fooled into thinking Taiwan has an autumn. The mountains are blanketed by conifer forests at higher altitudes and the crisp air and crunch of pine needles belie the fact that you're in the subtropics.

You start at Wuling Farms (武陵農場), a project that the KMT government established in 1963 for its retired servicemen. Fruit is produced on the farms, but this time of year the surrounding hillsides are terraced with tea that looks lush and lovely from a distance, but loses its charm somewhere during several kilometers of hiking up switchbacks from terrace to terrace to reach the trailhead.

The farm also boasts the only fish in Taiwan you can't eat. Taiwan's endemic and endangered landlocked salmon (櫻花鉤吻鮭) swims in the section of Chichiawan creek that runs near the visitors' center, if you care to look. Their numbers may have been further reduced, park officials say, by the recent severe rain. There are fewer than a thousand, in any case, and you stand a better chance of spotting one on a NT$2,000 bill.

Besides, you've come to conquer the mountain. If you've come from Taipei, it's noon at the earliest and you have about four hours of climbing ahead of you. Your destination is Chika hostel (七卡山莊), a barracks-style shelter that sits 2,463m above sea level.

What Chika lacks in aesthetic accommodation it more than makes up for with the fact that you didn't have to lug a tent. Hikers are easily able to make it here by afternoon's end provided they've started early enough. Another hostel, 369, is found at the end of your second afternoon on the trail.

Dawn at Chika is when you awaken to the fact that you're on vacation. The sun gets up late from behind the mountainsides and burns off a fog that lurked through the night. Flowers yawn and stretch and early birds whistle annoying morning tunes. Chika is also where your real hiking begins. From behind the hostel you're going to travel nearly straight up, through another series of switchbacks, to a ridge that runs between the mountain's east and main peaks.

It's a scenic slog and you won't mind taking your time. Nor should you. You'll have climbed to an altitude of 3,000m by day's end and a headache or altitude sickness could flatten your fun if you don't take it easy.

All along the trail are signs marking the area's flora of interest, deciduous trees and conifers and some 60 different types of flowering plants. Conservation authorities would presumably do the same for the area' s fauna, if the animals could be relied upon to take up their designated posts each day. You might see a small sign for the kind of tree frog you hear clearing it's throat at night or a family of Swinhoe deer posed behind another sign staked into the ground.

Alas, they've more important things to do and your chances of spotting a Swinhoe Gray are about as likely as your chances of spotting one of those landlocked salmon. You can always take a NT$500 note from your wallet to get a close look at what you're missing.