chinaadventure (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} chinaadventure) wrote,@ 2006-08-06 21:20:00 |
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Lalashan, Taipei County - the "Long March"
In an effort to catch a break from the aforementioned rounds of "You a poo-poo head!", I joined my classmates Dominic and Tommy on a backpacking trip in Taipei County last weekend. I knew we would also be accompanied by Tommy's girlfriend Mingzhen, and six other individuals from Taipei whom I hadn't met yet. None of my other classmates wanted to go with us; they were a little intimidated by Tommy's reputation as a serious hiker. Tommy himself had previously said that his favorite hikes involved "opening the road" - that is, heading straight up the side of a mountain with a backpack and a pole for clearing the way. The hike that he led during the class trip to Nantou in January is still a sensitive topic. I wasn't able to attend the trip but I did learn that only half the class was willing to go with him on that "easy" hike, and the survivors are still traumatized. Hanning recently complained, "It went on forever! He just kept saying, 'We're almost there, we're almost there,' but it lasted for hours!"
With this in mind, the four of us boarded the bus for Taipei on Friday. When we arrived in Taipei, I got my first indication as to what kind of hike this was going to be: the six other athletic individuals were all Tommy's hiking buddies from college. I noticed when we got to Lalashan ("Lala" is the local aboriginal word for "beautiful") at 2AM Saturday morning that they had provided only one bottle of water for each person, but they had brought plenty of beer. And a watermelon. We were unable to drive to the park gate on the first night because the guard would not allow the van to pass, so we camped (very noisily) outside the guard station.
On Saturday morning we gathered our packs, each weighing between 15 and 22 kilograms, and hiked up the road to the park gate. There was a minor dispute over the watermelon, as everyone wanted to eat it but no one wanted to carry it for 17 kilometers, so Tommy resolved this by carrying the melon himself. After half an hour we reached the park gate and started the real hike. The weather was cool and the thick vegetation provided some pleasant shade. The time passed quickly as Tommy's friends sang traditional Chinese songs or swapped stories about the daring rescues they had performed on girlfriends who fell injured during a hike. At 2PM we stopped for a lunch of noodles and took the chance to drop the packs, stretch out and relax. After an hour we shouldered the bags again and started the descent.
It was here that the fun started. In Tainan we had found while packing for the trip that Dominic lacked hiking boots but, encouraged by Tommy's statement that this was "an easy hike," we had all agreed there would be no problem with hiking in sneakers. I had done it myself on a previous occasion. However, once on the mountain, the combination of the heavy pack and a lack of adequate footwear meant that Dominic started having knee pain, which by midafternoon was unbearable. Since there was no choice but to continue on, the group decided to separate: six people went on ahead carrying Dominic's, Xiangchun's and Yuming's packs, and the remaining three of us (myself, Xiangchun and Yuming) stayed behind to assist Dominic with the descent. Despite the pain in his knee (we later learned it was tendonitis), he was quite stoic and offered no complaint. We patiently worked our way through the remaining 7 or 8 kilometers, which occasionally involved navigating across rockslides and small waterfalls. There were several places where the trail was less than half a meter wide and the drop-off was precipitous. Xiangchun and Yuming distracted us with stories of how during their military service, they had run the full length of this trail in the dark while carrying rocks. As the afternoon stretched into evening and the shadows deepened, with the trail end nowhere in sight and fatigue setting in, I began to think running the trail in the dark might actually be preferable. Yuming called out several times but there was no response; by sunset we assumed the lead group had already reached the aboriginal elementary school where we would camp for the night. According to the signposts on the trail, we still had several kilometers to go. When it was too dark to see clearly, Xiangchun and Dominic switched on their headlamps. I glanced briefly at the smattering of stars through the treetops overhead. Several times during the hike Xiangchun pointed out an unusual insect native to Taiwan, similar to a centipede but with an illuminated posterior like a firefly. We continued on in the dark, and it was after 8PM by the time we crossed the last bridge and saw the car that would take us to the school. We had hiked for nearly twelve hours, and even though my pack had been passed among the three of us for the last half of the hike, I was still completely exhausted.
There was plenty of hotpot, beer and watermelon waiting at the campsite, so we went to sleep that night tired but very satisfied. The following morning, we packed our bags and hiked down to a small waterfall for breakfast and a swim. The water was refreshingly cold and raised everyone's spirits, so that after breakfast the boys opted to climb the waterfall to check out the view from the top. I stayed below with Mingzhen, who watched Tommy with his friends and sighed, "There he goes again. He always has to be the first one up the waterfall..." One of the boys, Jinzi, thoughtfully carried a digital camera up the falls so that we, too, could see what it was like at the top.
After we finished swimming, we boarded the van for the return to Taipei. At the bus station Dominic and I bid farewell to our new friends and headed back to Tainan; Tommy and Mingzhen decided to stay an extra day in Taipei. In Tainan on Monday, I regaled our classmates in the graduate room with the story of our experiences on the mountain. One of my classmates, Lanceral, shook his head when I finished. "I don't believe it," he said. "I don't think that not having hiking boots would cause such an injury." He added, however, that it sounded like fun and he would like to try it.
It was suddenly clear to me who was going to be the next notch in Tommy's hiking boots, but I only smiled and said, "Next time you can go hiking with Tommy. He'll probably take you on an easy hike."
Photos from the hike: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a
In an effort to catch a break from the aforementioned rounds of "You a poo-poo head!", I joined my classmates Dominic and Tommy on a backpacking trip in Taipei County last weekend. I knew we would also be accompanied by Tommy's girlfriend Mingzhen, and six other individuals from Taipei whom I hadn't met yet. None of my other classmates wanted to go with us; they were a little intimidated by Tommy's reputation as a serious hiker. Tommy himself had previously said that his favorite hikes involved "opening the road" - that is, heading straight up the side of a mountain with a backpack and a pole for clearing the way. The hike that he led during the class trip to Nantou in January is still a sensitive topic. I wasn't able to attend the trip but I did learn that only half the class was willing to go with him on that "easy" hike, and the survivors are still traumatized. Hanning recently complained, "It went on forever! He just kept saying, 'We're almost there, we're almost there,' but it lasted for hours!"
With this in mind, the four of us boarded the bus for Taipei on Friday. When we arrived in Taipei, I got my first indication as to what kind of hike this was going to be: the six other athletic individuals were all Tommy's hiking buddies from college. I noticed when we got to Lalashan ("Lala" is the local aboriginal word for "beautiful") at 2AM Saturday morning that they had provided only one bottle of water for each person, but they had brought plenty of beer. And a watermelon. We were unable to drive to the park gate on the first night because the guard would not allow the van to pass, so we camped (very noisily) outside the guard station.
On Saturday morning we gathered our packs, each weighing between 15 and 22 kilograms, and hiked up the road to the park gate. There was a minor dispute over the watermelon, as everyone wanted to eat it but no one wanted to carry it for 17 kilometers, so Tommy resolved this by carrying the melon himself. After half an hour we reached the park gate and started the real hike. The weather was cool and the thick vegetation provided some pleasant shade. The time passed quickly as Tommy's friends sang traditional Chinese songs or swapped stories about the daring rescues they had performed on girlfriends who fell injured during a hike. At 2PM we stopped for a lunch of noodles and took the chance to drop the packs, stretch out and relax. After an hour we shouldered the bags again and started the descent.
It was here that the fun started. In Tainan we had found while packing for the trip that Dominic lacked hiking boots but, encouraged by Tommy's statement that this was "an easy hike," we had all agreed there would be no problem with hiking in sneakers. I had done it myself on a previous occasion. However, once on the mountain, the combination of the heavy pack and a lack of adequate footwear meant that Dominic started having knee pain, which by midafternoon was unbearable. Since there was no choice but to continue on, the group decided to separate: six people went on ahead carrying Dominic's, Xiangchun's and Yuming's packs, and the remaining three of us (myself, Xiangchun and Yuming) stayed behind to assist Dominic with the descent. Despite the pain in his knee (we later learned it was tendonitis), he was quite stoic and offered no complaint. We patiently worked our way through the remaining 7 or 8 kilometers, which occasionally involved navigating across rockslides and small waterfalls. There were several places where the trail was less than half a meter wide and the drop-off was precipitous. Xiangchun and Yuming distracted us with stories of how during their military service, they had run the full length of this trail in the dark while carrying rocks. As the afternoon stretched into evening and the shadows deepened, with the trail end nowhere in sight and fatigue setting in, I began to think running the trail in the dark might actually be preferable. Yuming called out several times but there was no response; by sunset we assumed the lead group had already reached the aboriginal elementary school where we would camp for the night. According to the signposts on the trail, we still had several kilometers to go. When it was too dark to see clearly, Xiangchun and Dominic switched on their headlamps. I glanced briefly at the smattering of stars through the treetops overhead. Several times during the hike Xiangchun pointed out an unusual insect native to Taiwan, similar to a centipede but with an illuminated posterior like a firefly. We continued on in the dark, and it was after 8PM by the time we crossed the last bridge and saw the car that would take us to the school. We had hiked for nearly twelve hours, and even though my pack had been passed among the three of us for the last half of the hike, I was still completely exhausted.
There was plenty of hotpot, beer and watermelon waiting at the campsite, so we went to sleep that night tired but very satisfied. The following morning, we packed our bags and hiked down to a small waterfall for breakfast and a swim. The water was refreshingly cold and raised everyone's spirits, so that after breakfast the boys opted to climb the waterfall to check out the view from the top. I stayed below with Mingzhen, who watched Tommy with his friends and sighed, "There he goes again. He always has to be the first one up the waterfall..." One of the boys, Jinzi, thoughtfully carried a digital camera up the falls so that we, too, could see what it was like at the top.
After we finished swimming, we boarded the van for the return to Taipei. At the bus station Dominic and I bid farewell to our new friends and headed back to Tainan; Tommy and Mingzhen decided to stay an extra day in Taipei. In Tainan on Monday, I regaled our classmates in the graduate room with the story of our experiences on the mountain. One of my classmates, Lanceral, shook his head when I finished. "I don't believe it," he said. "I don't think that not having hiking boots would cause such an injury." He added, however, that it sounded like fun and he would like to try it.
It was suddenly clear to me who was going to be the next notch in Tommy's hiking boots, but I only smiled and said, "Next time you can go hiking with Tommy. He'll probably take you on an easy hike."
Photos from the hike: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a
