I'm finally starting to recover from a miserable, nasty cold that's lasted almost a week.

Despite my cold, last Saturday (Dec. 1), while Kitty was in Beijing on business (and had the camera with her, so I have no pictures of my own - please see Robert's Blog for pictures), I went on a long hike that had been in the plans for ages, waiting for the perfect time when there was ideal weather and various regulars were available. We had heard about this hike from Richard Saunders, author of an excellent series of books about hiking around Taipei. Plus we were familiar with the first couple of hours of the trail.

The hike started near Wulai, in the Red River Gorge area. This area is home to Jiajiuliao Creek, one of our favorite summer swimming spots. On the other end, the trail emerges in Xiongkong (Bear Hollow), near Full Moon Park outside of Sanxia. The entire trail is about 13 miles through the wilderness of Taiwan.

There were six of us in all: Robert (the organizer of the hike), Scott (whom we hadn't seen in over a year, as a new father of twins), Kate (who has been hiking with us for a few months now), Paul (a new guy, from Vancouver), and I met at the Xindian MRT station. The sixth hiker, Peter, met us at the trailhead after his morning swim. Peter is the most extreme outdoorsman of all of us: he regularly gets up at ungodly hours in the morning to go up to the mountains to swim, even in the dead of winter. Plus he always powers ahead of the rest of us on the trails, no matter how challenging they may be.

The trail starts out with a short but steep climb up some stairs, bringing us to a relatively wide, clear trail that was once a Japanese logging road. As we were walking along this trail, we came across a Taiwan habu - one of Taiwan's poisonous snakes. Fortunately it slithered into the bushes and was facing away from us. That's the fourth snake I've seen in as many weeks! Unusual!

Eventually we crossed several rickety bridges made of logs and twigs. On one hike, one of our members fell through; fortunately he wasn't hurt. Soon we came to the Aboriginal huts - two small wooden structures where people often come to relax, drink tea and bathe in the stream. In one of the huts there's a sleeping platform - perfect for people on long overnight hikes. An Aboriginal couple greeted us and the wife gave us gumdrops.

This was the furthest along the trail any of us had ever been. We made comments about the scene in Lord of the Rings when Sam Gamgee says he'd never been beyond a certain place in the Shire before.

We continued along the trail, which grew wilder as the kilometers passed. Yet the trail was always clear and never overgrown. Soon the trail showed a marked upward slope which seemed endless. At one point we were climbing up a relatively steep mountain side. But before too long we came to a mountain pass, where we stopped for a rest. From there, it was all downhill.

The trail on the other side went through some beautiful cedar forest, with birdsnest fern growing in the trees. Before long we came to Dabaoxi (Big Panther Creek), and had to cross it three or four times, taking our shoes and socks off and rolling up our pant legs as we waded across. At the widest crossing, we encountered a small hunting party of Aborigines who were carrying home-made spear guns. They easily forded the stream, greeting us as they passed by.

When we got to the trail on the other side, I saw the first piece of garbage on the ground in a long time: a sign that we were approaching the end of the hike. An hour later we came to the end of the trail, where it met a road. We followed the road to the town of Youmuli (Wooded Mile), where a bus can be caught. While there, we celebrated the end of our hike with some beers.

Then we went to a nearby hot spring resort where we soaked our weary bodies in pools of steaming water. Too bad Belgian Pie's wonderful Belgian restaurant is no longer open - that would have topped off the day perfectly!

What a day!