Caoling Historical Trail ????

Pretty good hiking adventure today despite the weather. Took a local train (subway car on a railroad tracks) to Dali – about 90 minutes – and then hiked back over a mountain ridge that the train had tunneled through. Unlike the last hiking adventure in Taiwan I had very good directions for this one:
   

An exception to that was the actual start of the trail – my guidebook said ‘to the right of the temple is a short flight of stones to the trail’. Actually, you have to walk right through the temple to get to the trailhead. I have had trouble finding trailheads before, but never because I was shy about walking through the middle of a crowd of worshippers on a Sunday morning.

This trail is historical because it was the only way to get from the wild, but productive, east coast to the markets in Taipei and Tamshui before wheels, roads and railroads. It was done on foot – and with trail animals if you were wealthy. It could have been done in a boat but there are two difficult exposed points to get around (in fact, I know this because many years ago I raced a Hobie 16 around one of those two points – the currents are very strong, the swell is huge and it can blow hard, though it was calm when I raced).

As soon as I started up to the pass it started raining. I had my REI gear but was wearing jeans and a cotton layer underneath – always wear fleece! There were not many photo ops because of the weather. Here is a shot of some hikers coming down from a spur trail that went to a lookout over the Pacific. Note the windbreakers and the effect of the wind/rain off the cliff.

The 3 historical highlights of the trail are the ruins of an old stone house/tavern that was the only roadhouse for old-time travelers. Remarkably I did not take a picture even though it was the most interesting of the 3. The other 2 are carvings in stone – although well-documented I am a bit suspicious about their quality in that environment.

On the way up the trail, I saw less than 10 people. Of course, most people were surprised to see a white guy in the jungle in February. Shortly after the pass and on the way to the 2nd carving I started running into small groups of people. The groups got bigger and bigger. I saw maybe 500 people coming up the trail the other way (it is not a loop). Almost all of them were part of group hike clubs that had chartered busses to the other trailhead. Every one of them had good hiking gear but also an umbrella. I have never hiked with an umbrella and I have never seen hikers with umbrellas before (with the exception of all the chinese tourists we ran into on a hike on Mt Baker!).

During a break in the rain, I pulled out lunch – the 2nd half of a Subway sandwich (Turkey on Italian with green peppers left over from yesterday – the sandwich, not the green peppers, though technically I guess they were leftover too), but continued walking because there was no place dry to stop (the few pavilions were over crowded with the hiking clubs).  It was fun to see the reaction of people meeting a pasty white guy alone on the trail munching on his Subway (still had the wrapper over it) – always contrasts. Most tried their English on me, but a couple of people tried to start long conversations in mandarin.

Shortly after the 2nd carving the trail was deserted again. As I rounded a corner near a reclaimed rice farm (this is all in Nat’l Park territory now), I had to stop. Water buffalo on the trail. Unfortunately I am not current on water buffalo etiquette. I do know that they are domesticated and very gentle but I was not sure if they knew that. It was 2 moms with their kids (calves). So the prevailing rule in this situation is ‘Do Not mess with Mom’. Especially if Mom weighs over 600 pounds and has horns! Absolutely no reason to try to squeeze past them on such a narrow trail. Waited less than 10 minutes – took lots of pics but they were headed the other way, which means the part that I got pictures of was not the head.

Here is the rice farm  – where the buffalo roam!

A little excitement on the way back. The hike took less time than expected (just over 3 hours) so I caught on an earlier train back. On the way back we stopped at a town where there was a major 10k running race (again with the huge group activities!). The empty train (subway) was suddenly shoulder-to-shoulder with people, smelly people. About 20 minutes later, one runner – who maybe had not hydrated enough because of the rain – fainted and collapsed at my feet. He seemed to be breathing and I did not want to play doctor in front of 200 locals without any language skills so I just looked concerned. The authorities were alerted quickly but he recovered in about 3 minutes.

Got home. Did my laundry. Spoiled myself with a steak and decided to brag about my adventure on my blog. So there you go!