The peak season for viewing maple tree foliage in the Alishan National Forest Recreation Area is to last from now until New Year's Day, Forestry Bureau officials said today.
The officials from the Chiayi branch of the bureau said that the approaching cold air mass was expected to help the maple foliage continue to transform into spectacular colors.
The best areas include the Ogasawara Viewing Platform (小笠原觀景平台), Ciyun Temple (慈雲寺), Zhaoping Station (沼平) and Duigaoyue Station (對高岳), they said.
Photo courtesy of Huang Yuan-ming
They said that about half of the maple foliage visible from the Ogasawara Platform has turned red, while the maples near Zhaoping and Duigaoyue stations are about 40 percent red.
At Ciyun Temple, the green maples have just begun to change and about 10 percent have red hues, they said.
Huang Yuan-ming (黃源明), a retired elementary teacher devoted to documenting Alishan's beauty, said on his "Alishan: Strolling Above the Clouds" Facebook page that as well as the trees in the forest park, the green maples along the Shizilu section of Taiwan Provincial Highway No. 18 are a sight to behold.
"From the 79k tunnel to the 83.5k section, the roadside green maples are beautifully vibrant," he wrote.
Huang added that in the 88k and 90.8k sections, the trident maples are changing daily, showcasing shades of yellow, green and red.
Additionally, the maple trees along Highway No. 18 between Alishan and Tataka have already turned red, he said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
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