Chiayi County has more than it’s fair share of short hiking routes, and working through the list is a personal priority. Earlier this week, I spent a day driving to and hiking along the Youth Ridge Trail (青年嶺環狀步道), a path so named because, in its original form, its steepness is said to have left all but youngsters utterly exhausted.
Like many of the tracks that criss-cross Taiwan’s mountains, the Youth Ridge Trail was first blazed by indigenous villagers so they could trade with nearby communities. The path as it now exists is a shortcut of sorts between two points on Road 166. If you can’t persuade someone to drop you at one of these locations and pick you up at the other, you might have to do what I did — park, hike to the far end, then retrace your steps back to your vehicle.
The trail is 2.385km long*, and contour maps suggest that one-way hikers might prefer to start at the northern end near Rueili Elementary School (瑞里國小). That trailhead, at the 78.7 mark on Road 166, is a little over 1,000m above sea level.
Photo: Steven Crook
To shorten the time I spent behind the wheel, I turned off Road 166 at the 72.2km mark. A steep downward side-road very quickly leads to the trail’s southern terminus at an altitude of approximately 850m. Finding a convenient spot to park my car was easy. On weekends, it’s likely to be much more difficult.
As I was about to set foot on the path — the entrance is marked with an informative bilingual mapboard — I noticed that an attractive butterfly had taken a liking to my car. A few minutes later, I disturbed a large cluster of lepidopterans, among which was the largest non-birdwing butterfly I’ve ever seen. I got fairly close to it before it flew off in a blur of yellow and pale orange. Its wingspan was around 15cm.
After a few switchbacks through bamboo, the trail entered mixed forest. Dozens of tiny, dark orthopterans jumped off the path; they looked like grasshoppers to me, but I’m no expert. I got fed up with wiping spiders’ webs off my face, so, as I progressed northward and lower toward Cujhihkeng Creek (粗紙坑溪), I took to waving a short stick at head height.
Photo: Steven Crook
The creek is certainly deep enough to drown in, but there’s no obvious way to get down to its rocky banks. Just before the Lovers Suspension Bridge (情人吊橋), 865m from the southern trailhead, I looked across the narrow valley and got my first proper view of the Youth Ridge Trail’s most famous sight: Swallow Cliff (燕子崖). Unless the weather has been dry for weeks, you’ll see a curtain of water pouring out of the forest above the cliff, and crashing down onto a huge, smooth boulder.
The horizontal ridges in the cliff face were caused by wind erosion. During spring and summertime, they’re inhabited by nesting swallows .
Less than 100m further on, what’s called the Bat Cave (蝙蝠洞) isn’t a cave but another cliff face. The rock here is pockmarked by irregular holes. Some looked large enough to conceal my water bottle, but I didn’t investigate too closely, in case there were bats inside. According to an information board, bat numbers here have declined due to human disturbance.
Photo: Steven Crook
A few hundred meters further along, I came to a rest area with a bench and a sign that told me I was now 1,020m from Rueili Elementary School. I didn’t immediately realize it, but this marked the start of Heroes Slope (好漢坡), the stretch of trail which is said to separate the weak from the strong.
As befits its reputation, the slope was unrelenting. The contour map shows a gain of nearly 300m in that 1.02km, and I felt every meter. Nowadays, almost all of the ascent is on elevated wooden stairways, so at least there’s no risk of slipping on mud.
On Heroes Slope, there are several breaks in the tree cover. The views can be good, but during my hike visibility was limited by low cloud. A bit later, as I worked my way back down the slope on the return leg of my hike, I could hear the chugging and horn-blasting of a train on the Alishan Forest Railway (阿里山森林鐵路). The nearest station on the logging line is Jiaoliping (交力坪).
Photo: Steven Crook
According to bloggers, finishing the trail takes most people at least an hour and a half. Including photo stops, a 20-minute break for my lunch of bread and tuna, and a few other pauses to catch my breath, I completed my there-and-back hike in three and a half hours. Not bad for a 50-year-old — but as I write this, nearly 48 hours later, my calf muscles have yet to recover.
* An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the "trail is at the the 2.385km mark." It should have said that the "trail is 2.385km long." The Taipei Times regrets the error.
Steven Crook has been writing about travel, culture, and business in Taiwan since 1996. He is the co-author of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai, and author of Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide, the third edition of which has just been published.
Photo: Steven Crook
This month the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced a new policy ostensibly aimed at influencing the upcoming presidential election. A top-notch Voice of America (VOA) report observed “China launched a series of influence campaigns against Taiwan last week, unveiling a plan to promote integrated development across the Taiwan Strait.” The plan, a “demonstration zone,” offers incentives for Taiwanese to live, work and invest in Fujian Province, across the Strait from Taiwan, along with supplies of water, electricity and gas. Using cooperative zones to poach technology and influence Taiwanese is an old plan that has appeared in various
While participating in outrigger canoe activities in Hawaii, Yvonne Jiann (江伊茉) often heard indigenous locals say that their ancestors came from Taiwan. “I didn’t really understand why,” the long-time US resident tells the Taipei Times. Growing up in Taipei, she knew little about indigenous culture. “Only when I returned to Taiwan did I learn about our shared Austronesian cultural background and saw the similarities.” Jiann visited Taiwan just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down international travel. Unable to leave and missing her canoe family across the Pacific Ocean, she started the Taiwan Outrigger Canoe Club (TOCC) and began researching how
SEPT. 25 to OCT. 1 Joyce McMillan was greatly moved by the pleas of the Taiwanese pastor and doctor who preached at her church in the summer of 1954. Hsieh Wei (謝緯) had just completed his medical residency in Buffalo, New York and stopped by Berkeley to raise funds and recruit staff for the tuberculosis treatment center the Presbyterian Church planned to open in his hometown of Puli, Nantou County. McMillan, who was a nursing aide, had the dream of being an overseas missionary since she was 7 years old. She also had a close friend die of tuberculosis. She expressed
Small things can mean a lot, and all revolutions start somewhere. So it is that the humble pocket, a repository for small things and once a minor consideration in clothes design, has become big news. A growing movement decrying the lack of proper pockets in women’s clothing has begun to find disciples in the world of high fashion, as well as among mainstream chains. A new study of the feminist question of pockets, published on Sept. 14, has already made a sizeable impact, despite the modest aims of the author, American academic Hannah Carlson. “I was very careful to make each chapter
RSS