From Xizhi to Pingxi- 從汐止到平溪

People had tried to convince me of the folly of this trek, or had laughed in disbelief when I mentioned it to them.  They were Taiwanese though, and knew not the lengths some foreigners are willing to go for a bit of outdoor excitement.  Seven and a half hours of it, to be exact, from the top of Dajian Mountain in our own backyard all the way to Jingtong Station.  Seven and a half hours of crossing mountains in perfect weather.  It'd been six months, but I'd finally made good on the promise to myself that I'd make it past Sifenwei Mountain.

Our day begins around 7:30 am, Jaryd, Ash and I meeting in front of some government building.  The morning is sunny, yet the heat hasn't had time to set in, and we manage the first leg of the journey up Big Sharp Mountain with minimal difficulty.  This is probably the most we'll have to work on the entire trip.  After stepping onto the natural path towards Sifenwei Mountain, Jaryd decides to take off his shoes and walk the way God intended, enjoying the smooth, hard-packed earth beneath his feet.  I join him after a bit, the cool ground heavenly against my soles.  The trail is barely rougher than the tiled floor of my apartment, and contains far fewer pubes.  Ash joins us, and for a while all three of us bewilder the Taiwanese hikers we pass.  We run into a pair of older women picking young ferns, nodding approval at our barefoot trek.  They hand us each a small sprig from their harvest, which I chew on thoughtfully.  It has a taste reminiscent of arugula, though less spicy, and leaving the same sticky residue that okra does.  Apparently the leaves can be mixed up in a salad, or made into a soup as a remedy for intestinal bloating.

At the wooden steps my shoes come back on, as I don't relish walking on hard, angled boards.  Jaryd's still going strong, even when the trail becomes overgrown with rocks and jutting roots.  We reach Sifenwei Mountain in good time, and take a short break at the ridge top meadow, enjoying Sunday in the best way possible, the sun shining, the air pristine.  Near the end of our snack break I see a foreigner walking up the slope towards us.  Motioning to the others I flick my head, "White dude."  Jaryd recognizes this particular white dude as one of the teachers at Nangang Hess.  Hess, the inescapable presence in Taiwan; I swear, it makes an already small Taiwan seem like a college campus.  In this case, though, Clay is a quality guy, and he hikes with us for a ways before he's forced to turn back, duty with the in-laws calling.

Into uncharted territory

Stepping off of Sifenwei, I'm taking my first steps into uncharted territory.  Laughably, we hit the road almost immediately.  A map by the trail tries to fool us into thinking north is in the direction of Pingxi (it's SE), but is otherwise pretty clear.  Contrary to what Pasta-G guy thinks, it looks like we're not getting lost, not easily anyway.  The tall grass that looked so plain last visit has, like the grass atop the Taoyuan trail, sprouted golden fronds, framing the background view of mountains between Xizhi, Shiding, and Pingxi.  Thankfully, the hike is much the same as that towards Sifenwei, a blessed lack of steps, the occasional stint of ropes, and plenty of moss-covered rocks.  With a 7.5 hour hike you're going to see some variation in mountain flora and topography.  We pass through overgrown meadows and bamboo forests in addition to thick jungle, sweating little on the shaded path.  As we climb up towards our first peak, firmly within the Xizhi-Pingxi mountains, the right side of the trail drops off dramatically.  Anyone who steps off that side will experience terror short-lived, before their body cannons into a tree.  Once we're on the ridge line we're hardly exerting ourselves, the path running flat for the most part, as if we were simply on a morning stroll through the park.  I'm reminded of Bilbo taking his constitutionals through Hobbiton, walking stick in hand.  Wait, walking stick?  Holy shit, I think Bilbo was Taiwanese.  Taking short hikes for his health, then sitting down to an excellent spread?  Definitely sounds Taiwanese to me.

Mt. Erkonggui comes and goes without fanfare, as there's nothing to mark it, and a definite lack of the dramatic vistas we've been privy to.  In fact, while I'm still wondering when we're going to hit its peak, we blunder across these two monoliths:

One person online thought these were vestiges of Japan's occupation, marking some kind of police checkpoint.  Don't know what purpose these stone towers would serve for a checkpoint, seems like a waste of time and stone.  Ash spots a sign in Chinese, and we find out the towers' real purpose: support pillars for a wheel and pulley system transporting coal.  Before the existence of the 106 Highway connecting Muzha to Jingtong, coal mined in Shiding and Wukeng, and coke refined in the outlying areas of Erkonggui was transported across the Erkonggui saddle by way of cable down to Xizhi, where it was then wheeled by pushcar to a steel smelting factory.  We rest here in the company of relics from an industry long gone, then push on to Peak 581.

We must be gaining in elevation, because Taiwanese cedars starts to crop up, first in ones and twos, and then swaths of them occupy the mountainside.  I'm excited by their presence, and the beautiful brown-red bark that makes such a delightful contrast against the other mossy-grey trees.  Climbing up we see still more variety in tree biology.  Beautiful Madrones, looking for all the world like wistful dryads, reach upward in thin, elegant tendrils, their smooth skin tanned a perfect brown.  I come across a tree with an interesting bark pattern, learning much later that it's a sycamore.  In the low altitude mountains you never really leave the jungle, so it's surprising to find the variety of tree life here in hot, humid Taiwan.

The top of Peak 581 also fails to have any appreciable view, but it does have a map that sends us veering off to the east.  Our destination is a temple, from where we'll hit up a cave, and then descend to Erkeng Village and the train stop.

"Breast-groping lane saddle"

Ash making music with some grass

At this point, the hike is starting to tax my endurance, but I laugh at the claims of difficulty by the hiking blogs.  Anybody could do this hike, there's no challenging ropes, no unassisted scrambles up bare ridges.  All that's necessary to make the Xizhi-Pingxi trek is patience, an appreciation of beauty, and plenty of food and water.

After a while, we see the road, and Jaryd thinks we missed the correct route, because if there's a temple ahead, we don't see it.  I stop and ask an old man farming his plot of land below for directions to the temple.  He looks at me blankly then points south, "Pingxi," repeating the action north, "Xizhi."  Awesome.  Who needs a map with directions like these?  On the road proper, there's a small shrine directly in front of us and-

-wait, I've been here before.

Xizhi

Pingxi

Holy shit, I've totally been here before!  This is the furthest point I traveled when riding Ryan and Katie's deathtrap after the Jiangziliao hike.  Here's the trail marker, the small shrine right by the road...wait.  Is this the temple?  This tiny shrine...is the temple on the map?  Well, with that figured out we orient ourselves once more.  The old man's directions turn out to be a little less provincial than I thought, because we're actually right on the boundary between Xizhi and Pingxi.  Like literally on the line.  We hop back on a lower branch of the Ancient Jingtong Trail and follow it down.  All the points of attraction turn out to be little lame.  Roubanka is just an upthrust cliff that's inaccessible, and the cave is little more than an enclosed morass.  We keep heading down, and at one fork, I suddenly stop, a sense of familiarity sweeping in.

Ah, fuck dat

Another cave further ahead, just as muddy.

Me: "Wait.  Is this the way to that one peak we did with all the stairs?"
Jaryd: "Yep."
Me: "Well, hot damn.  That's where we are!"

So then, if the entrance from Jingtong is at Erkeng...then Erkeng was that tiny village we passed through with the abandoned buildings.  Cool, let's check out how they're doing:

Uh, that was fast.

Our last visit, for reference.

Before long we're at Jingtong Station, completing our 7.5 hour and countless km trek across the mountains.  Your average Taiwanese person might think we're crazy, but it's memories of this cool, breathtaking hike that'll keep me content during the long rainy season that's on its way.

Edit: I'll be getting a picture of the maps Jaryd and Ash took eventually (my camera's resolution is too low).  You'd think all the other blogs would've taken pictures of the maps that are distributed throughout the hike instead of fashioning their own crude examples.  Perhaps they hadn't been installed yet.