Knife-Edge Hikes

The last two weekends, we hiked Huangdidian and Wuliaojian, two of Taiwan's notorious knife-edge ridge hikes. Huangdidian is near the town of Shiding, to the southeast of Taipei, and Wuliaojian is near Sanxia, to the southwest of Taipei. The two ridge systems are similar, but separated by about 20 miles.

On February 15, we went to Huangdidian. Originally we were planning to hike near Wulai, but the weather was so good we decided to do this hike, which requires good weather.

Here's what the ridge looks like. On either side are steep, bare rock faces.
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Here's Kat, slipping off the ridge to her doom...! (Just kidding!)


There are a lot of ladders here. (Wuliaojian, in contrast, has few ladders, but a lot of ropes.) Kate, Kitty and Kat.


Robert


A section without safety ropes:


Kitty


Kat wowing us with her mountaineering skillz:


The ruins of an old house we passed on the hike back down:


A night-time scene in Shiding


We finished our day with a meal at a tofu restaurant in Shiding that we had discovered a few months before.

On February 22, we went to Wuliaojian, which is more hardcore than Huangdidian.

Lots of rope climbing:


After a great deal of rope climbing and scrambling over rocks, we finally reach the ridge. Here's Filippo.


Soon after this is the toughest part of the hike: the descent down a sheer rock face with a slope of about 55 degrees, using a knotted rope.


Kitty


Filippo


After this, there are a few more rather tricky rope descents, but they're a breeze after that big one.




Then a hike down through a humid jungle. Here's Filippo contemplating a bird's nest fern (Asplenium nidus) up on the tree:


The fruits of the cluster fig (Ficus congesta). They're edible, but have no flavor. I know: I tried one. They would make good bush food if you were stuck in the wild.


We saw a snake on the hike down! It was a Taiwan Beauty Snake (Elaphe taeniura), a non-poisonous rat snake. No pictures: it got away too fast.

Finally, we reached the road, and walked through a quaint country village:




Just down the road a but there was a farmer lady selling vegetables, Kitty bought some. The woman saw that Kitty was with three foreign men, and said to her, "You're with these foreign guys...aren't you afraid?" We found that somewhat amusing! She then realized that we understood Chinese, and started apologizing. She said "I hope you don't think all of us mountain folk are backward!"

After that, we got to the car and drove to Sanxia, where we ate at Belgian Pie's restaurant.