23 March 2014
Me vs the volcano
Today I went to Yangmingshan national park, just north of Taipei.
I have been there before and got lost, its huge, theres a lot of different peaks.
last time I think I walked from the MTR station up to somewhere in the Datong range, and the fog came.
This time the weather was great, and I took a bus up to the start of the proper hiking area, and made it properly over the top of several peaks around Mount Qixing.
It was fantastic. I took a lot of boring photos, so brace yourself for sameness.
Once you get off the bus its all a very nice looking garden area. Theres even a starbucks, and lots of people.
I think these people just go from spot to spot on one of 9000 mini buses, cause there were a lot less people on the climbs, and on the walk I took back around the base, no one.
I think I am going up there. It doesnt look very far.
After an hour or so, I got to the summit climb. I appreciate this kind of signage.
OMG squirrels, everywhere. People feed them by hand.
Most of the climb is steps like this. Very steep, quite slippery. I have shorts and a t-shirt. Lots of locals were quite concerned for me, but I estimate it was 15C.
About half way up, I thought I better take this in case it was cloudy up higher.
I have been going 2 hours and it doesnt look any closer than 5 photos ago from the car park. What kind of bullshit is this.
I think I am getting somewhere now.
First stop is the east peak. It would have a great view of the city, except I am in semi fog now. The top part of the climb is through a bamboo forest.
I dont like to brag (yeah I do), but I set a goal to make it to the top without stopping for a break, and other than 5 seconds for each of the photos, I did that. 2 hours and 5 minutes upstairs non stop.
I have aged badly due to the high altitude.
Every now and then the fog sort of blew away briefly for a view.
Now I am at the main peak, which is like 5 metres higher than the eastern peak.
Theres some sort of mountain climbing group up here going crazy with celebrations and holding a flag.
I got offered mini tomatoes to eat, and some tea. I politely declined. None the less I got a hug from a very excited woman.
Lots of people came up to me and asked if I was cold. No, I was sweating. In the wind it could be a bit chilly, but there was a thermometer up there nailed to a post that said it was still 10C.
I decided to walk down another route, about half way down here. It started to smell strongly of sulphur dioxide.
I took a panorama, its probably small cause I exported it at the same settings or something technical like that no one cares about. Maybe I will update it manually.
It was quite windy for all of my many selfies.
Then I came to the volcano. Gas was coming out of the ground everywhere.
There was a sign stating it was a cooling mountain that was once very angry. Good to know.
Nice view of the valley plus steam.
Looking back towards more mountains across the valley, maybe tomorrow!
More steam or gas or whatever it is.
Finally back to a car park area, looking back up the volcanic part. Only issue is I am far from the bus that goes back to town, and the various mini buses are all 150% full.
So I took a double chin selfie and set off. Walk around the base of the mountains back to the main bus station.
This provided some excellent views of valleys with farms and streams and stuff.
The path however was very mossy, which looks great but had me fall flat on my ass twice, so I took this photo whilst seated unexpectedly.
And after a 7km march around the base of the summit area (confused?), I was back, and still much higher up than I thought I would be.
A great day out for sure. Theres lots more to this massive park, so I might be back. However theres plenty of other parks too!