The Four Beasts and others - 四獸山

The Four Beasts 四獸山 are four small mountains in the Xinyi district that overlook Taipei city and Taipei 101. Separately they're called Elephant, Leopard, Lion and Tiger mountain (象山、豹山、獅山、虎山). Rising up further and behind the beasts are the peaks of Nangang mountain and Jiuwufeng.

A lot of the trails here are lit at night and so lots of people come, especially to Elephant mountain, to get a great view of the fantastic night scenery. Neil Wade and myself went up Juiwufeng a while ago and again last week and the views are something that you can never get tired of.

Previously I've always driven up to a certain point and then walked up from there but this time I wanted to start at the bottom and work my up, across the ridge and back down via Elehpant.

I started on Fude street 福德街 next to the Fengtian temple 奉天宮. To get there you can walk from Houshanpi MRT station exit 2 down Dadao road 大道路. At the bottom there is a T junction and a 7-11 on the left. Turn towards the 7-11 and walk past it, taking the next right down Fude Street's lane 221 . The temple is on the right.

Walking past the temple, look out for a circular gate on the left, Go through this and then straight up the stairs. This is the beginning of the trail. At the top of the stairs, the trail follows the edge of a cliff up to a spot called the Longdong rock (I think.... the name needs confirmation!). This is one of my favourite spots to watch the sunset over Taipei. On a good day, you can see the Grand Hotel, Gunayin mountain, Yangmingshan........ it really is spectacular and only takes 15 minutes to get to.

Following the trail up from here leads to a small viewing platform/shelter and a jungle gym. Taiwanese people seem to love going up into the mountains to do their pull ups and practice the hula hoop!

Tiger mountain is close now, follow the signs and pass by a rickety, homemade staircase with a VIP red carpet and you're there.

I walked down off tiger to the road behind it and then made a left. I then went straight at a T-junction and turned right to go to the Zhongyi Temple 忠義宮. Walking up past the temple, I came to a new but old-looking gate and turned right to go through it.


It's difficult to explain which way to go from here as there are so many trails. Just try to head up and towards the mountains and you'll get there!

After about 20 mins, you should get to the next turn off on the left. It isn't signed posted but it is just before a shelter and it doesn't have any paving, just rock, mud and a couple of hiking tags. Just before I started to head up, a woman came running over telling me how dangerous this route was and that I shouldn't go on. I told I'd be fine and went ahead anyway thinking that it couldn't be that bad!

The trail goes steeply up at this point. You need to clamber over boulders and avoid the enormous spiders on route. After fifteen sweaty, tiring minutes, I arrived at the bottom of a cliff. This part is very difficult and really it's more like rock climbing than hiking. Above is a 40m high cliff with ropes attached. It is really scary! I had come here on my own and if no-one else was there, I think I might well have turned around! But seeing a 12 year girl march straight up to the ropes and start pulling herself up, I felt like I had to do it.

Not many pictures of the climb unfortunately. I was too busy fearfully gripping the ropes to stop and get my camera out! Maybe next time I'll take a smaller camera. At the very top, I scrambled over a metal fence and kissed the ground. I had made it! To the right is Jiuwufeng peak and after that comes the slightly smaller Nangang mountain. Jiuwufeng has awesome views of the Taipei basin and even though the weather wasn't perfect, I thought it still looked fantastic.

From Nangang mountain, I turned back the way I had come and then took the next left. Immediately after turning, I headed down to the right to a small roped section, with some crazy, unsteady ladders.

From here the trail is again really difficult to explain. Best just to follow the sounds of KTV and head downwards. There are lots of trails and I suspect they all lead pretty much the same way. After a while I got to the Sishou trail and I followed this to elephant mountain. Just after elephant is Thumb rock, a small collection of rocks with a wonderful view of Taipei 101.

By this point the clouds were really starting to roll in and I needed to get down before a storm broke out. I headed down and managed to just make back before all hell broke loose with lightening and huge amounts of rain.

Photos are here and here

Neil Wade has accounts of his trips and great photos here

Practicalities

The trails up on the four beasts are nearly all paved and easy to follow. However the roped section leading up to Jiuwufeng is very, very difficult and should only be done on a dry day.

Water and everything you need can be bought at the 7-11 on Fude Street at the start.

Information on buses can be found here.

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Shidi Guan Yin Mountain 石底觀音山

This is a tough, tough hike, especially in the heat of the summer. We decided to head here after reading Richard Saunder's article about the source of the Keelung river in the China Post. It sounded interesting and I found a map with a circular route we could follow up to the peak of Shidi Guan Yin Mountain 石底觀音山 and back down to the 106.

To get there we follow the 106 from Taipei towards Pingxi 平溪. After a while there is a hairpin bend with a small tunnel on the apex of the bend. Go past this and then through a small tunnel. After this, look on the left for a turn off that leads up to a temple. There's a sign in English and Chinese but you'll need the eyes of a hawk to spot it!

We drove up to the temple from the 106. The source of the Keelung river is to the left and behind the temple. It's a nice spot but a little underwhelming. We tried to find the trail up from the source but couldn't and so we headed back towards the temple.

On the way down we noticed a bunch of hiking tags on the right hand side (don't know how we didn't spot them on the way up!) and this is the trail that Richard Saunders followed down so we headed up it. Man, it's steep! And definitely one for a dry day. After a sweaty, hour long climb we got to the peak which has some nice views of the surrounding valleys.

From here we headed down towards Er Kong Gui Mountain 耳空龜山. Then disaster struck!!!!! I stupidly didn't zip my camera up into the bag properly. It fell out of the bag and went tumbling down the mountain. Bugger. I climbed down after it and found the lens was destroyed. Still nothing could be done so we cracked on.

The trail down was really hard. Loads of ropes and near vertical sections. We walked for what seemed like ages but was actually only an hour before we got a fork in the trail. Hiking in the summer in Taiwan often feels like self inflicted punishment!

At the fork here we turned right and headed down towards the number one pit 一坑. We passed a large rock and then met up with a small stream. We followed this down, passing a couple of nice pools and eventually came out onto the 106.

On the opposite side of the road there's a small cafe and so we stopped for some mango shaved ice before following the road back to the temple.

Practicalities

The climbing on this trail in pretty hard. Take care and don't do it in the rain.

There's nowhere for food or water and so you need to bring it.

There are buses that run from Mucha out to Pingxi but I don't know if they stop near the turn off the Yuanming Zen Temple 圓明禪寺.

A rough map of the area can be found here at Tony Huang's blog.

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Stinkyhead mountain - 臭頭山 (and others)

Pingxi 坪溪 is rapidly becoming my favourite place for hiking. This is the third time that I've been hiking in this area and each time has been great. The mountains that surround Pingxi just look awesome and are fantastic to climb. There are really craggy peaks and huge ridges that just drop for hundreds of metres.

For this trip we decided to revisit a couple of peaks we'd been to before, Xiaozishan 孝子山 and Cimushan 慈母山, and then continue onto to two new ones Zhongyangshan 中央山 and the oddly named, Stinkyhead mountain 臭頭山.

The trail starts off in the village itself. Follow the 106 eastwards and look out for a sign on the right. There are actually 2 places marked and we started at the second one next to the road but it makes no difference. The other signpost leads up to a car park and so for anyone driving a car that one would be a better starting point.

We climbed up Xiaozishan 孝子山 first. As you head up from the car park, the trail starts directly in front. For Xiaozishan, head up and then to the left. It is really well signposted. The rocks here have had stairs carved into them and it is really quite easy to climb, though a good head for heights is needed towards the top. From the peak looking westwards you can see Cimushan 慈母山 and Cimufeng 慈母峰.

We climbed down Xiaozishan and headed up Cimufeng. Again stairs have been carved into the rock. From here we got great views of Xiaozishan.

At the peak of Cimufeng we headed down direcly towards Cimushan but instead of climbing it at the bottom, we followed the signs for Zhongyangshan. Along the way we passed a cliff wall with lots of large and small pocks in it where stones had fallen out. Just after the wall it got a little bit complicated. There are numerous trails and not all of them are signposted. Keep you eyes open for tags! And try to follow the signs.

The trail leading to Zhongyangshan is mostly forested and very quiet. We only met one person on this section, in stark contrast to Xiaozishan and Cimushan which are very busy.

Just before the peak there is a fantastic section of ropes going up a vertical cliff face. It was great fun hauling ourselves up here! At first sight it didn't look at all easy to climb but there are plenty of footholes and ropes to grab at.

At the top of the rope we turned left to get to the peak. It's difficult to tell from the photographs but in front of the peak is a straight 100m drop. From here we got some awesome views of Pingxi so we stopped, had something to eat and enjoyed the scenery.

Next was Stinkyhead mountain. On the way down from Zhongyangshan we caught a glimpses of some of the ridges. Just sheer drops and an amazing sight. Stinkyhead mountain itself doesn't really have any views so we just cracked on after reaching it.

Our original plan from here was to head back towards Pingxi but on the way down we spotted a sign for some grasslands 草原. Feeling curious, we followed the path to a small open area and from there we turned left and continued. Suddenly in front of us the jungle gave way to large expanse of grassland and a small farm house. It's a really beautiful sight and I'd definitely like to head back there to explore it some more in the future.

After that, we headed back towards Pingxi, passing the turn off for Fengtoujian and the old abandoned mines on the way.

More pictures here

A Chinese account can be found here - (中文版)


Practicalities

Water and the like can be bought in Pingxi.
Some maps for the area are available here, here and here.
I drove but it is possible to take the bus from Muzha, number 16.

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