Hiking trip to Yinghan Peak on Mt. Guanyin One of the activities in which I have always wanted to engage myself is to hike the mountains in Taiwan. Now I am here, I looked around and found an obvious and easy target to visit first. It is there to be seen everywhere I go on this northern tip of the island. The mountain’s unique shape, which has undoubtedly etched in many people’s memories, looms behind the mouth of the river Danshuei which flows through the cities of Taipei and New Taipei. The name of the mountain is Mt. Guanyin, after the Buddhist goddess of mercy, and is situated on the west bank of the river within the District of Bali of New Taipei City. Although the mountain raises only modestly above the sea level, with elevation being 609 meters at the peak, the height of which was just right for me to explore, one that is not too high to be too physically demanding and not too low so I can partially achieve the goal of conditioning myself for the preparation of the future trips to venture the higher mountains which are more challenging and are plenty in numbers on this island. I took an early bus to the MRT train station in Danshuei. From there a subway train brought me to the town of Luzhou, which is on the opposite side of the river from where I started. So the train must have gone across the river underground sometime during the ride, the idea of which is very intriguing as I have never thought that was doable knowing how mighty river Danshuei has always been. The next leg of the trip is by another bus ride which took me to the Visitors Center on halfway of the mountain. The road to there follows a narrow winding mountain road with the opposite traffic moving at a fairly good speed. However, all the drivers seemed to have perfect coordination between them as most of the vehicles passed and missed each other by a few inches almost at the last second. At the Visitor’s Center, I got some printed information which listed the places to visit and the map of the trails leading to them. I selected one place the name of which attracted me most. It is called “Yinghan Peak,” which literally means “Tough Guy’s Peak.” Sure enough, it is the highest point of the small chain of mountains. I followed the map and found the entry point of the trail. From there, and further up the hill, the whole route is paved with stone blocks to avail hikers a smooth journey without having to fight the mud and other adversary road conditions since it rains quite often in this area. After two thousand and some steps (some fellow hiker gave me this number) uphill later I reached the peak. There, standing on an erected wooden platform and looking around, is the breathtaking, awesome panorama view of the metropolitan of city of Taipei. I quickly retrieve the iPad from my back pack and recorded the unbelievable scene presented to me by the nature. After this trip, I decide to go there once a week since I believe this exercise will help me greatly to achieve my future goals of conquering the more formidable mountain ranges on this island of Taiwan.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 08:45:54 +0000
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