It’s 8:30am as I and two friends visiting from England drive our hired car through the pancakes-flat paddies of Yilan County’s Lanyang Plain (蘭陽平原), heading towards the precipitous, looming barrier of the lush green mountains that abruptly rise from the coastal belt, just a kilometer or two inland.
It’s a weekday last month, and it’s still early. Early is the best time to do any sightseeing around Jiaosi (礁溪), the hot spring resort that has exploded in popularity (and size) since access to it from Taipei was made easier with the opening of the Hsuehshan Tunnel (雪山隧道) over a decade ago.
One great result of Jiaosi’s huge popularity these days is the range of accommodation now available — competition keeps standards up and prices (generally) down, and we’ve just spent the night in one of the nicest little resorts that I’ve encountered in all my years in Taiwan, at a price lower than the mediocre hotel in Taipei where we’d spent the previous night.
Photo: Richard Saunders
Jiaosi and its wonderful waterfalls are always on the itinerary when visitors come to stay (and the hot springs usually go down well too), and we managed to avoid the worst of the crowds at Wufengchi Waterfalls (五峰旗瀑布) by arriving at 5pm the evening before. At that time most visitors were already leaving. I’m expecting our visit to the enchanting Linmei Shihpan Trail (林美石盤步道) to be a quiet and peaceful prelude to an outstandingly scenic day as we head south along the Suhua Highway (蘇花公路) to Taroko Gorge.
I’m wrong.
The first sign that Linmei Shihpan Trail is no longer a well-kept secret is the pair of exhaust-belching tour buses we get stuck behind as we leave the plains and the road starts winding up into the mountains. I assume they’re heading to the Fo Guang University (佛光大學) campus, further up the road from the trailhead.
Photo: Richard Saunders
But no, as we approach the trailhead, the sides of the road are lined with parked cars. There’s still still no formal car parking near Linmei Shihpan trailhead, and just after it five or six coaches have already parked and offloaded their contents. It’s hard to believe that I’m seeing this at not quite 9am on a Wednesday morning. The school summer holidays haven’t even started yet.
We have to drive some way further up the road towards the university before we can find a roadside place to park our car, and then we walk briskly back downhill, with the aim of getting on the trail before any more tour buses turn up.
Things don’t immediately improve much, as the first section of the trail lies beside a golf course, along a wide, stony track. At least the crowds that follow the track are protected from being hit by stray golf balls by a tunnel of netting which extends for several hundred meters.
Photo: Richard Saunders
Things pick up at idyllic Caonan Lake (草湳湖), where a couple of viewing decks jutting out over the water make good wildlife viewing platforms if you arrive early or late, when it’s relatively quiet.
The saddest part of our visit is immediately after this, at the entrance to the trail itself. In recent years, Yilan County has been showing the way ahead in terms of limiting the impact of tourism on sensitive environments. On my first few visits here, numbers were limited to 350 at any one time. All visitors were issued with a pass at this point, to be returned upon leaving. When the passes run out, further visitors have to wait until returning walkers pass through the gate on their way out and hand back their card. Possibly this measure is still enforced at the weekends, but I’d say this beautiful place needs week-round protection these days, if today’s crowds are typical.
The track, now cut into the side of a deep valley, soon narrows to a dirt path, which was once used to transport logs. After passing over a couple of bridges, the gorge narrows, the rocky cliffs start to close in, and the path is forced onto a wooden catwalk jutting over the lush, fern-filled gorge, as the stream below flows over a series of tiny cascades and through a beautiful aquamarine pool.
Photo: Richard Saunders
Round one more corner and across another footbridge the walls close in like pincers, forcing the path onto a long set of steps anchored into the side of the rocky cliff, while the stream plunges, unseen, over a series of waterfalls in the rocky defile to the left.
At the top, an observation platform gives an oblique view of Shihpan (“stone platform”) Waterfall (石盤瀑布), while on the other side is a large, slightly sloping platform of rock, from which the water body gets its name. The stream’s big plunge is less than 15 meters in height, but it makes up for its modest size in sylvan, unspoiled beauty.
The stream is crossed by a footbridge just above the waterfall, and passes an ugly scar caused by a big landslide that closed the trail for many months a year or two back. Finally the wide path follows the opposite side of the gorge back to the gate at the beginning, passing through a grove of maple trees that make a fine display in late autumn.
After my first visit, over a decade ago, I wrote a blog piece about this place, saying: “There’s no doubt that this is going to be Jiaosi’s new big attraction, so get there now: before the crowds!” Well, the prediction has certainly come true. As the trail descends back to the starting point, the sound of a megaphone greets our ears. It’s 10am and the new day (and its fresh crop of coach parties) is underway. We get back to the car as quickly as we can and head for the rather less stressful beauties of the astonishing Suhua Highway.
Richard Saunders is a classical pianist and writer who has lived in Taiwan since 1993. He’s the founder of a local hiking group, Taipei Hikers, and is the author of six books about Taiwan, including Taiwan 101 and Taipei Escapes. Visit his Web site at www.taiwanoffthebeatentrack.com
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