Taiwan is home to more than 200 peaks over 3,000 meters
in height, including East Asia's tallest mountain, Yushan.
But despite this distinction, very few hikers from overseas
make a point of visiting the island for its spectacular mountain
ranges, leaving the local population to enjoy the trails themselves.
On a hot August weekday afternoon, a small hole-in-the-wall store in downtown Taipei is doing a steady trade selling hiking boots, outdoor clothing, backpacks, and camping accessories. Mountain Friends, as the family owned retailer is known, has for forty-three years sold all manner of outdoor equipment to a growing number of customers. Sales are down from last year, concedes Hsieh Pi-hui, the daughter of the store's founder, but demand for hiking equipment in Taiwan has actually grown steadily over time. "More Taiwanese are enjoying the outdoors these days," she notes. "Especially young people who have more leisure time than their parents."
An estimated 500 mountain-climbing or hiking clubs and associations exist in Taiwan today. Some of these associations are nongovernmental organizations while others are informal clubs attached to organizations such as academic institutions and large companies. The larger groups tend to organize regular trips to the mountains complete with guides. On any given weekend through out the year, hundreds of hikers from cities and townships across Taiwan head into the hills to enjoy nature and to get away from their busy scheduales. For those in the know, Taiwan is an island of inexhaustible adventure that can provide a lifetime's worth of rewarding hikes.
Local hikers have not always flocked to the mountains in large numbers. For much of the island's history, the high mountains were either considered too dangerous--due to the sometimes-violent aboriginal inhabitants--or access was restricted. During the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945), entry to the mountains was strictly controlled for security reasons. In the postwar period, this obsession with security was carried over to the late 1980s, when martial law ended.
Despite the new opportunities to explore higher elevations in recent years, many Taiwanese feel that the mountains are too dangerous. This fear is not totally unfounded, but the dangers these days are the kind that hikers would face anywhere--dangers such as taking a fall, getting lost, or encountering poor weather. Admittedly, there are a few hazards particular to Taiwan, such as venomous snakes and the very real danger of landslides, especially during a typhoon. But these kinds of risks do not deter Taiwan's numerous and experienced die-hard hikers.
Very few visitors to Taiwan, however, come specifically to climb the island's many beautiful and lofty peaks. Of the 2.5 million visitors to Taiwan in 2001, the majority came to conduct business and stayed an average of only seven days. Although some visitors have made a point to visit some of Taiwan's scenic attractions, few have contacted climbing associations to help organize hiking trips.
Taiwan measures only 35,570 square kilometers, about half the size of Ireland, but it has more than 200 distinct peaks over 3,000 meters in height. This is an extraordinary number of high peaks given the small area. Despite an international reputation for being an industrialized, congested island, these forested mountains dominate Taiwan. In fact, almost three-fourths of Taiwan is classified as slope land (land over 100 meters in elevation and over 5 percent slope), and nearly half of the main island is above 1,000 meters in elevation. This goes a long way toward explaining why the urban areas, largely concentrated on the western coastal plain, are so crowded.
How did Taiwan become so mountainous? Mountain ranges are formed when continental-sized fragments of the earth's crust, called tectonic plates, crash into one another. This often results in massive uplift and folding of rock strata. The existence of Taiwan is owed to one such messy collision in recent geological times. Between five and one million years ago, the huge Eurasian tectonic plate--that includes the Asian landmass to the west of Taiwan--collided with the Philippine Sea Plate to the east of Taiwan, and in the resulting matrix some of the Eurasian Plate's sedimentary rocks were forced upward, forming Taiwan.
Looking at the result as a whole, a tilted fault block running roughly northeast to southwest forms the surface structure of the island. The steep slope of this tilted block faces east, and the rock mass slopes more gently to the west. The folds of rock form approximately five separate mountain ranges along this fault block. The East Coastal Range, the most recently formed, is rising at the relatively rapid rate of 2 to 4 millimeters per year. As experts point out, this tectonic mountain-forming process is not unique to Taiwan, but the height of the uplift--at its highest point over 3,950 meters--is very unusual given Taiwan's small size. Fault lines have occurred where the folded rock has fractured from stress, leading to rock sheer that gives the mountains of Taiwan a pronounced steepness.
Taiwan's Central Range, or "backbone ridge," runs parallel to the island's axis (north-northeast, south-southwest) and contains the majority of Taiwan's high peaks. Yushan (Jade Mountain), or Mount Morrison, is, at 3,952 meters, the highest peak in East Asia. South of Taipei and on the western flank of the Central Range lies the Mount Snow Range, which contains the second highest peak in Taiwan, Hsuehshan (Mount Snow), at 3,884 meters. The popular Mount Tapachien is also found in this mountain group. To the east of the Central Range lies the East Coastal Range. Other mountain groups are either subordinate to these three main ranges, or are volcanic in nature.
The density of Taiwan's high mountain peaks and the compact nature of the island contribute to an ideal environment for geographical study, says Lin Jiun-chuan, head of the Geography Department at National Taiwan University. Lin, an expert in geomorphology, says that there are few places in the world where so many types of landforms--including those resulting from tectonic plate movements, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions--can be visited within the space of a few days. Moreover, the high mountain region, due to its ruggedness, has maintained much of its environmental integrity. Taiwan may be small, but surprisingly it hosts the whole spectrum of plants found from the equator to the Arctic Circle, thus providing a miniature ecological sample of the Northern Hemisphere, Lin notes.
Given all these features, why do so few people--other than those who live on the island--explore Taiwan's magnificent mountains? The answer to this question is complex and involves many factors, including, possibly, ignorance about Taiwan, a relative lack of accessibility to the mountains, and a lack of multilingual information about hiking for overseas visitors. Like the mountains them selves, however, things are changing all the time.
Taiwan's reputation abroad as being a place of urban pollution and natural disasters may change over the coming months and years, says C.T. Su, director-general of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau. "Taiwan's mountains are covered with forests, and in just one day a tourist can experience tropical, subtropical, temperate, and alpine climates with their associated vegetation and fauna," he explains. "Even the casual tourist can experience this by driving along the cross-island highway." Su adds that the government has been taking steps to promote ecotourism in the island's mountain areas, and 2002 has been designated ecotourism year in Taiwan.
For the independent traveler who visits Taiwan with the intent of exploring the peaks, access is the main problem. While it is theoretically possible for anyone to go into the mountains, entry is effectively restricted by the regulations of three different government agencies. Those wanting to climb any peak over 3,000 meters must first get a permit from the police and hire a guide from one of the officially recognized climbing associations. Those whose visits take them through national parks, which is often the case, must get permission to enter the areas from park authorities. Finally, conservation areas within national parks require an additional application for entry, at least ten days in advance, from the Taiwan Forestry Bureau.
Not surprisingly, the bureaucratic miasma surrounding entry to Taiwan's mountains can overwhelm the average non-Chinese speaker, but perseverance does pay off. Plenty of people manage to arrange trips to their liking, and so can overseas visitors, with a little patience, time, and one or two like-minded companions. A piece of good news is that Taiwan's mountain environment seems to be headed for deregulation, which would make access for international hikers much easier in the future.
Tsai By-lu, superintendent of the Yangming Mountain National Park has had plenty of experience trying to balance the needs of hikers and climbers with conservation and the necessity for safety in his twenty-year career with the park. According to Tsai, the government and national park authorities welcome overseas visitors to hike in Taiwan's mountains. One recent improvement benefiting hikers is the ability to apply for entry to a national park at the gate instead of applying in advance in Taipei. A one-stop shop for multiple mountain-access applications is also being considered. For the moment, entry to protected areas must still be booked separately in advance, but this can now be done via the Internet.
The Ministry of the Interior's National Police Administration, which is responsible for access to Taiwan's mountain areas and oversees twenty-nine mountainside townships, has expressed a willingness to allow overseas tourists into mountain areas but insists that they apply for permits. Foreigners can easily get a Class B permit to enter a scenic area from the township's main police station. For those wishing to climb a peak over 3,000 meters, however, a Class A permit from Taipei is still required, as is a qualified guide.
Pan Jenn-wei, a specialist of the Mountain Section of Taiwan's National Police Administration, explains that regulations con trolling access to Taiwan's mountain areas are in place for good reason. But he admitted that the system, dating back to the colonial era, was perhaps a little archaic and that some regulations may be relaxed in the future. Pan indicates that authorities are considering dropping the stipulation requiring hikers to hire a guide for treks over 3,000 meters.
It does seem a pity that Taiwan's extraordinary mountains are the nation's best-kept secret. Chang Hsiu-hsu, associate editor of Taiwan Mountain Magazine, attributes this to the fact that developing the mountain tourist sector was not a government priority in the past. Now the push is on to raise awareness internationally of what Taiwan has to offer in terms of outdoor experiences, she adds.
Meanwhile, some travelers have already made it into the realm of the senses: "Overseas visitors who come like Taiwan's mountains," says Li Yi-chuen, a veteran English-speaking mountain guide with twenty years of experience. Li spends six months of the year trekking in China and Nepal, and he continues to recommend Taiwan's mountains, as they are "soothing to the eye." The mountains also have the added advantage of being nearby each other, making trekking to various peaks possible in a short span of time. Li adds that it is possible to go hiking year round in Taiwan, but October and November are particularly good months due to the typically dry, sunny weather.
Gary Heath is a freelance writer based in Taipei. He is a frequent contributor to the Taipei Times and other daily newspapers. He is also the author of Travels in Taiwan published in 1999.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Gary Heath.