Red Leaf Valley Waterfall 紅葉谷瀑布

 

Red Leaf Valley Waterfall is a 20 meter waterfall in Sanzhi District-- in the foothills of what those of us who live in Taipei think of as the other side of Yangmingshan National Park. It's a lovely spot, especially on a hot day. Not far from the falls, there is a flat, shady clearing next to old indigo extraction pits which is a good spot for a picnic lunch. The path from the trailhead to the waterfall is relatively straight forward. It is wide and not too hard, though it does get narrower and rockier toward the top. This post also describes some road hiking, a short-cut to the main trailhead (for hikers taking public transportation) and an exploration of the area just above the waterfall. 

Distance/Time:  10.9 km/ 5 hours 50 mins.  

Driving to the trailhead and just walking to the waterfall would make the hike only about 4 km. 

From Houdian bus stop to the waterfall and back is about 9 and a half kilometers.  My hike was longer because I went further upstream of the falls before going back. 

More details as well as a map can be found here on my ramblr account.

What to bring: In Houdian there is a small shop but it just sells a few drinks. It's better to pack anything you need ahead of time. 

I packed lunch and snacks and two liters of water. It was a hot day and I also treated and drank some water from the waterfall. (My filter is broken so I used iodine). 

The Trail: My hike started with a road walk along country roads. I took a shortcut to cut out a large bend of the road and then arrived at the main trail to the waterfall. After that I walked above the falls looking for some ruins. 

The road walk was nice and there was lots to see. I don't mind walking on roads and consider it part of hiking and not a prelude to the hike.  

The shortcut that I took was slightly confusing but if you have an offline map, it's not that hard to find the way.

Red Leaf Valley Waterfall (Hongyegu Pubu) is also known as Neiganzhai Waterfall.The main path to the waterfall is easy to follow and very pleasant. There is one stream crossing. Near the top it gets steeper, narrower and more rocky but it is never very hard. The waterfall itself is spectacular. The water plunges into a dark, deep-looking pool but there are shallow areas of crystal clear water around the edge that are great for soaking your feet. The water felt cold even on a hot day.

The path that I took above the falls was treacherous: narrow, steep and often next to a big drop. I walked until the path recrossed the main stream. It was a nice spot but the ruins were underwhelming and I wouldn't recommend going up unless you just feel like doing some more exploring. 

The waterfall is near the Lujiaokeng Ecological Protection Area. You need a permit to enter the nature reserve but don't need a permit for the waterfall.  

Route landmarks: Houdian bus stop -- Yuanshan Village Liansong No. 2 Bridge --shortcut trail entrance --  Red Leaf Valley Waterfall trail head -- stream crossing -- Red Leaf Valley Waterfall

Transportation:  I took the MRT to Tamsui and then took bus 876 to Houdian. This bus shuttles between Tamsui and Sanzhi. It departs at Tamsui at 6:00, 9:30, 11:40, 15:10 and 17:15.  

I took You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe for the ride.

You can also take bus 866 but it only runs once a day, leaving Tamsui at 8:45.

Both bus stops are near exit 2 of the MRT station.

On the way back, I caught the 15:10 876 on its way back to Tamsui at 16:10.

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The walk: I got off the bus just a little after ten and started hiking at 10:12. Turning back in the direction of Tamsui, I took a smaller road forking left and uphill. This was 北 11. 

Coming around the first bend I could see True Dragon Tower high on a hill. It is the largest columbarium in the world; designed to hold the ashes of 400,000 people.  An article I came across described it as a "hotel for the dead."

After just five minutes the road split and I took the right fork. I passed a colorful, little Earth God shrine by the side of the road. 

I took the right fork here.

 

 

 

 

 

Tudigong Shrine

I walked along bucolic stretches of road and passed several clusters of houses. I saw a few large dogs but none of them paid much attention to me. As I got closer there were nice views of the mountains of Yangmingshan. It was the tail end of August but still summer weather, with flowers in bloom. The forecast was for an apparent temperature of 41 C. Waiting for the bus back in Tamsui, the sun had been brutal but as usual, once out of the city, it felt much cooler. 

Just 25 minutes after I started I came to Yuanshan Village Liansong No. 2 Bridge. There was a blue sign with the name of the bridge indicating it was an emergency rendezvous point in the case of a nuclear power point emergency.

On the other side of the bridge I turned right and faced a wide area with a green metal shed between two roads. The green building seemed to be a temple or a place for storing temple paraphernalia. I took the road on the left and went uphill and around a bend. Around the bend there was another fork and I took the right fork.

left at the green metal building

I took the right fork here.

This was a nice shady road which after a while brought me to the trail I was looking for--a short-cut to the main trail for the waterfall. 

trail entrance for the "short-cut"

There were four older people, three men and a woman, a couple of them smoking, who were lounging next to the road across from the trail. One of them asked me where I was going. Ni yao qu nali? I told them I was going to Hongyegu Waterfall and the whole group erupted in shock and laughter. 

Oh! There's no waterfall here! Zheli meiyou pubu! We live here we know! You can't get through this way! Ni bu neng guo qu!

 

Now I usually respect the opinions and knowledge of local residents but something about this group's dissolute appearance told me they had not been on a hiking trail for years. Also, I was checking the map on my phone and could see a trail right in front of me. 

 

One of them starting looking at my phone screen and laughed and said Google was useless there. Zheli Google mei yong. He was right about that but I told him I wasn't using Google Maps, I was using Maps.me which is still no guarantee of complete accuracy but it's a lot better for trails than Google Maps. 

I am stubborn and their attitude made me want to prove them wrong. So I just told them I would check it out (Wo jiu qu kan yixia.)  and started up the trail. 

You can see from the map screenshot below the route I took. The red arrow is the direction I came from. If I made a sharp left, I could have followed the road in a big curve around a hill but instead I took a trail over the hill.  The short cut was a little confusing so if in doubt-- or if you just want to avoid being told by the locals that you don't know where you are going-- take the road.  

 

The red dot on the left is the short-cut trailhead. The red dot on the right is the main trailhead for the waterfall. The map shows two trail entrances on the left (west) side but the first one was next to a farm and a blue mesh barrier was pulled across it.

 

The trail split almost immediately. At first I did not notice the narrow left fork and I took a right fork that wasn't shown on the map. Within a couple of meters I noticed I was heading away from the direction I wanted to go so I went back, saw the left fork and took a steep, crumbly trail uphill through a copse of bamboo. 

 

I came to a place where a tree had fallen on the path but I went around it and kept going. 

I came to a wider path that was leaf strewn and grassy and turned left. 

There are two paths here on the right and going straight leads back to the road past the farm. The first path goes up and over a hill and looked pretty rough and anyway at first I didn't see it because it is not marked.  

The path to the waterfall trailhead is clear. It is the first clear, path on the right, heading downhill. It just took a few minutes to find it. 

This was a really enjoyable trail and it took me right to the waterfall trail. I got there at 11:26. An hour and 15 minutes from the bus stop. There were 7 cars parked on the side of the road.

The trail to the waterfall is very nice and as I said wide and easy. 

After about 20 minutes I came to a pretty stream crossing. 

 

 

There is one place where the path forks but both routes join together later. I took one way on the way there and the other on the way back. 

I passed several old stone walls.  I passed the clearing next to indigo extraction pits. Though the indigo dye industry in Taiwan experienced a resurgence during WWII when industrial dyes where hard to get, it pretty much died out once industrial, synthetic dyes were available.  There were a lot of people eating and talking at the clearing. I kept going to the falls. The closer I got to the waterfall the narrower and stonier the trail became. 

There was a large, noisy group at the waterfall. A group of four hikers --two men and two women-- arrived after me and one of the men struck up a conversation in English. He had just come back from a trip to Washington D.C. The big group headed back down and then it was just the five of us at the waterfall. 

The other guy filtered some water with a Sawyer Squeeze and started cooking lunch. The two women went through an elaborate procedure of changing into swimming suits inside of large bath towels and then only got their feet wet. I had some lunch, splashed some water on myself and soaked my feet. 

On the map it says there are ruins above the falls, so I decided to walk up there and check it out. First, I walked back downstream and took a fork marked with trails flags just before the waterfall. 

The route to the ruins is only about 500 meters but the trail is overgrown and very rough. It was hard going and took a while. There were several very steep parts. It climbed high above the falls with a big drop on the right and up and down ravines where tributaries ran into the main stream. There was one junction at the top of a steep climb but the obvious path to take was the one on the right, following the stream.
 

The ruins are where the path crosses the main stream again. I don't know what the story behind them is but all I saw were the remnants of a stone wall.  I would have missed it if I had not been looking for it.

I rested for a bit enjoying the stream and the solitude and then headed back to the waterfall. On the way back I fell once and ended up with bloody knuckles.

Back at the waterfall I talked with the four other hikers as well as some newcomers, washed off again and then started my hike out. I took the same route on the way back. When I took the short cut I first walked right by the trail going down to the road. Look out for two large stones. The path starts between them. 

On the way I checked the BusTracker Taiwan app and realized I had cut it a little close for catching the bus.  I jogged part of the way on the road and arrived with a few minutes to spare. I had a cold drink from a shop and changed out of my sweaty t-shirt. According to the app the bus was due at 16:15 but it arrived at 16:10. 

Further Information: 

Here is a video by Tony Huang about the trail.

Here is another video from YouTube with some beautiful images of the trail and waterfall.

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 Map and coordinates:

Houdian bus stop: 25.225237, 121.51607, Google Maps link

Short-cut trail entrance: 25.21652, 121.531012

Hongyegu Waterfall trailhead: 25.215975, 121.534992,  Google Maps link

Hongyegu Waterfall: 25.203985, 121.544679, Google Maps link

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