A man and a woman heaved a sigh of relief on Friday after they survived three cold nights lost on the nation’s second-highest peak, eating nothing but Mentos.
Chen Yu-chu (陳佑竹), 30, and Chang Yun-chien (張芸茜), 40, joined a man surnamed Liu (劉) to ascend the 3,886m tall Snow Mountain (雪山) on Monday as a way to celebrate the arrival of the New Year.
To get ready to conquer the summit on New Year’s Eve, the trio spent their first night in the 369 Cabin at an altitude of 3,690m in Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County’s Dahu Township (大湖).
However, after Liu suffered headaches the next morning, Chen and Chang decided to go up the mountain on their own.
After Chen and Chang failed to return to the cabin before midnight to count down to the New Year with Liu as planned, Liu immediately called the police.
Although Chen had many wildness survival experiences, the pair’s families were extremely worried, saying that Chang was an inexperienced climber and that they had packed lightly when heading to the summit on Tuesday.
The pair said after their rescue that were it not for the two lighters and two rolls of Mentos they had brought with them, they might not have survived.
“We went astray because of heavy fog when trying to reach the peak. As Chen’s GPS navigation device and radio transmitter were both out of batteries at the time, we decided to head down to the valley of the Cijiawan River [七家灣溪] first because the nighttime temperatures on the summit could drop to as low as minus-6°C,” the pair said.
Chen and Chang said that they used their lighters to start a fire out of tissue papers and dry branches they gathered to stay warm.
Since the Mentos were their only food, the pair decided to eat one mint only when they felt unbearably hungry.
They spent two long nights along the river before heading toward the mountain’s East Peak (東峰) on Thursday morning to try to find their way back to the cabin.
After spending another night in the woods, the pair eventually found the hiking trail and returned to the cabin.
The Taiwan Rock Rescue Association and the Greater Taichung Government’s Fire Bureau came to their rescue at about 2pm on Friday.
Chang burst into tears upon seeing the rescuers, saying the three nights had been a living hell and that they had felt like they were on the brink of death.
The bureau said that the pair was weak, but stable, and rescuers escorted them down the mountain yesterday after staying one night at the cabin.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS