Yushan (玉山) 2nd Climb Oct 2008

This is my 2nd ascent of Mt Yushan, the 1st one being my inauguration mountain hike in Taiwan which ended up at the summit seeing nothing as the weather was bad. Total enshrouded in rain clouds and no view as all. Luckily my 2nd attempt paid off well with clear skies and a stunning sunrise. Will be writing less details here so as not to repeat what was mentioned in my other Yushan blog.

For this round, we had a group of 9 friends all from Singapore making their own way to Taiwan and meeting each other up in Taipei. Even though this was my 4th Taiwan trip, I haven’t been to Sun Moon Lake. So we made a short detour to have a look at 日月潭 (Sun Moon Lake), the largest lake in Taiwan which stands at an altitude of 748m. The above is a picture of Sun Mon Lake and the interior of the WenWu temple (文武殿)。

We spent the night at 東埔 (Dong-Pu) before the next day morning climb. As usual, we took the Tatajia trailhead as our start point. It was a crowded day with many big buses ferry hikers to this place for their trek. We did a final toilet break before the trek. I took a shot of the toilet sign (above) with the stunning backdrop view. Seldom has the chance to blend this 2 items together.

We started the trek towards Paiyun lodge @ 3402m and around 6pm, we reached the lodge. It was already dark because we started off late and had many rest points along the way. The lodge was really crowded with many groups camping outside the lodge. After dinner we tried to catch whatever rest we could get before the next morning climb at 3am. At around 5:20am, we reached the summit. It was no longer pitch dark at the summit and we could see the skies brightening up while waiting for the sunrise. It was cold at the summit even there was little wind. It was considered the best weather any climber could ask for. Yet my feet was feeling cold once we stopped climb and sat on the rocks waiting for sunrise.

We made our way down after watching sunrise. Trying to avoid the huge group that were still admiring the view. This was my time being able to see what was the route and the surrondings we took on our way up. The climb up to the summit was in darkness, only illuminated by our headlamps. But it was a sight not to be missed because of the large number of people (say 100+) climbing at the same time, the headlamps from the climbers cast a long trail of illuminated lights. From the top looking down, we can see a wavy line of lights below.

Here is a sign (above) showing the 2 paths that you can take. One to return to paiyun lodge and exit the national park again at Tatajia. The other will lead you to Yushan North Peak and subsequent the trail to BaTongGuan (八通關) and all the way DongPu（東埔）. After 2 hours of decent, we reached Paiyun lodge, had our meals , packed our bags and made our way back to the trailhead of Tatajia.

We spent the night at DongPu instead of heading back to Taipei. It was originally a 4 day 3 nights hike from Yushan peak via BaTongGuan to DongPu. But because of the recent typhoon that destroyed the BatongGuan triail making it impassable and very dangerous. Instead we did a half day trek from DongPu to YunLong (雲龍瀑布) waterfall which is part of the BaTongGuan trail.

Before the trailhead of BaTongGuan, the land is filled with farmlands. And the one near the trailhead was actually a big cabbage plantation. We had to do a few douging here and there to prevent ourselves getting wet.

The trail that runs along BaTongGuan was narrow and it was a steep and long drop on one side. This trail was dug out from the mountain walls during the time when the Japanese soldiers need to transport cannons across the mountains during the Japanese occupation period.

While making our way to YunLong waterfall, we came across some workers from the national park working on the trail repairs. They advised us to be careful as many of the trails and bridges had been washed away. Well, we did some acrobatic stunts while crossing some waterways.

Finally at Yunlong Waterfall. This was our turn around point. The water was crystal clear and fresh and all of us took gulps of water from it as the weather was hot that day and all our water bottles had almost dried up.

The last picture here is that we were making our way back to DongPu for the 4hrs drive back to civilian, KFC, night market food and pungent coffee brew ( for some) in Taipei