We started out at the trailhead across from Pingxi Junior High School The trail starts with some steps, but leads up to a level path that was once a railway for coal carts, back in the heyday of the coal mining industry in this valley. It's a very easy trail.
Eventually it comes to an area with a couple stone ruins... old office buildings from the coal days. And crossing the creek to the right, we come to an abandoned coal mine shaft, completely flooded. We call it Gollum's Lair.
Gollum's Lair
One thing we noticed around here, indeed throughout our hike, was a plethora of butterflies.
White Commodore (Parasarpa dudu)
Blue Tiger (Tirumala limnicae)
The trail starts to get a little rougher after this spot. Appropriately, there a tudigong (Earth God) shrine here.
Cluster Fig (Ficus congesta)
Soon we started to climb. Some of the climbs were quite steep. There were ropes.
When we reached a certain altitude, we started seeing Dipteris ferns (Dipteris conjugata).
Dipteris ferns
We reached the top of Zhongyangjian (lit. "central peak"), and then headed down. This required a precarious descent down a steep rocky cliff, but there were some ropes, and we all made it without incident.
Spikemoss (Selaginella doederleinii
Soon after, we found a nice rest stop and had some snacks.
We trudged on...
And down along the bottom of a cliff face...
And back down to the highway and to the car. There was more nature to be seen, such as the Taiwan Begonia, which grew wild in much of the lower elevation areas of our hike.
Taiwan Begonia (Begonia formosana)
We saw a lot of swallowtails in the woods, including the Formosan Swallowtail (Papilio thaiwanus) and the Great Mormon (Papilio memnon), both of which come in many beautiful forms.
Great Mormon (Papilio memnon agenor)
We followed our hike with dinner at our favorite restaurant in the area, Huanggong, which is in a wonderful old Japanese-built house in Jingtong.
