Da Tong Shan (大同山) and Da Dong Shan (大棟山)

 

The paths of this hike are popular and well trodden but I really like this place. When I first came to Taiwan I lived near here and walked here often. Today, after leaving the busy city streets behind this hike felt like walking in a peaceful green tunnel filled with the sounds of birds and insects and in one part, the occasional rooster. This is a moderate hike but it is definitely not easy. There are lots of steps and the route I took is long. But the paths are almost all wide and very well maintained with good footing. Highlights include the New Taipei City Arms Park, several temples, great views all along the walk and two peaks.

Distance/Time: 17.19 Km/5.5 hours. I covered a lot of ground and I pushed myself because I was trying to beat the afternoon rain. At a slower pace, it would take longer to do the whole walk. It would be easy to cut out one of the two peaks and do a shorter walk.

What to take: Nothing other than the usual things. There are convenience stores near the beginning of the hike and also some things for sale at Qingde Temple. The path is wide so I wore shorts.

Transportation: I took the orange line to the Huilong MRT Station and started walking from Exit 2.

The hike: I left Huilong Station by exit 2 and turned left. Then walked to the intersection with Zhongzheng Road (there is a police station on the corner), crossed the road and turned left soon passing over a small stream. I followed this road for a few blocks until coming to two signs pointing to an alley on the right. One says New Taipei Military Cemetery and the other says New Taipei City Arms Park. There is a Hi Life just on the corner as you enter the alley, and looking straight down the alley steps can be seen climbing right up the hill at the end of the alley.

 When I got to the Arms Park I was a little disappointed because it was under repair and blocked. But only one section was closed and it was easy to get around it by walking up the country lane on the left until I came to a sign for Da Tong Shan. I turned right and went to check out the Arms Park which is full of military hardware, like tanks, planes and a missile. After looking at these I took the stairs climbing up behind the main building of the arms park. This soon turned into a nice narrow paved path and emerged on a platform next to a shelter house and a playground. 

 I went straight between the shelter house and the playground, following an uphill path. From here its a steep climb mostly up steps to the first view point which offers an excellent view of the city. It took me about an hour from the MRT station to reach the first view point.

 

After taking in the view, I continued straight along a path until it joined a road and then straight on the road. On the way you come to a wooden boardwalk on the left which leads to another good view point. 

 I walked until I came to a fork in the road. Just next to the left fork is a short steep muddy path with ropes that climbs to a ridge and the next view. At the top there is a sign pointing to Qingde Temple and Da Tong Shan. Emerging at the temple you can go either left or right. These are two paths that pretty much run parallel to each other. I took the right path, walking through a small market, following signs for Da Tong Shan. I reached Da Tong Shan (237 meters) an hour and 45 minutes into the hike. 

 

After Da Tong Shan the path continues straight right through a Tudigong (Earth God) temple. Soon I took a muddy path on the left that cuts over to the other parallel path that I could have take back at Qingde Temple. This was also a really nice path with groves of bamboo and farms plots nearby and at one point I could hear people practicing traditional Chinese instruments in a little farm next to the path. 

 When I came to a temple with a distinctive red roof I turned right passing through the temple and walked down to a country road. You could continue straight until the path reaches the road but because of the way the road twists and turns its shorter to cut off before the end. I turned right and uphill walking back toward Qingde Temple by road. This road was very active with lots of walkers and I even saw two people giving haircuts at the side of the road. Only $100 NT for a haircut. Along the way there is an interesting temple on the left with a huge golden statue at the entrance that is worth checking out.

I walked up the road steeply until I came to the trail head for Da Dong Shan. There is a wooden sign post and the path cuts up to the left contouring the hill. Follow this path all the way up to Da Dong Shan (405 meters). There are some side paths but the signs for Da Dong Shan are clear. The path was muddy but wide with good footing. 

I stopped here to have a sandwich while enjoying the view

The path to Da Dong Shan sometimes splits but rejoins soon

It took me 4 hours to walk from the MRT station to Da Dong Shan but I took a pretty big detour on the way. After checking out the view I went back out the way I came, rejoining the road and walking straight back to the path I took from the Arms Park. The only difference is that when I reached the shelter house, my legs rebelled against the thought of more stairs and so I took a right and walked down a country road to the trail head which was a bit longer but gentler. The descent took an hour and a half. 

If you wanted to make the walk shorter you could, instead of climbing Da Dong Shan, of course just return on the road and path after visiting Qingde Temple and Da Tong Shan. Or conversely cut out the side trip to Qingde Temple and Da Tong Shan and just climb directly up to Da Dong Shan. To get to Da Dong Shan directly, instead of taking the path to Qingde Temple, just take the left fork in the road and go along the road looking out for the signs for Da Dong Shan, which in this case would be on your right. The names for these two mountains in Pinyin can be confusing. In Chinese Da Tong Shan is 大同山 and Da Dong Shan is 大棟山.

 https://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MjAyNTIwNzE=

 

Trail head GPS: 25.014242, 121.409634

Da Tong Shan GPS: 24.9966, 121.406855

Da Dong Shan GPS: 24.9958, 121.38406

MuMu Shan 畝畝山 to Stone Raft Waterfall

 

The route takes in two peaks and 2 (possibly 3) waterfalls at the end and it feels very wild. We saw no other hikers until we reached the more popular trail near the end and we could hear barking deer as we were walking. There are not many views but the climb to Mu Mu Shan is rewarding and the waterfall at the end makes it all worthwhile on a hot day! This is a tough hike. The first part of the route is very rough and not easy to follow. It’s also a steep climb up to the summit of MuMu Shan.

Distance/Time: About 10 + Km (I forgot to turn on the ViewRanger app until after we had already been walking for about 20-30 mins). It took about 7.5 hours including breaks. We were moving more slowly than usual because it was a very hot day and route finding was difficult in the beginning.

What to bring: I would recommend lunch/snacks, plenty of water and definitely long pants and long sleeves as the path is overgrown in places. Maybe a set of dry clothes if you want to soak in the water near the end. There is nowhere to buy anything at the beginning or the end of the hike.

Transportation: We took bus 795 from to Shifen (not all buses go all the way there so make sure it is the one to Shifen) from Muzha MRT Station about 8:05. I think these buses leave about every thirty minutes on the weekends so it would probably be okay to just show up at the bus stop. But I always check ahead of time. We got off at the Dongshige bus stop, a few stops after the town of Lingjiao. Actually we missed the stop and had to walk back along the road for one stop and we started hiking about 9:00.

The hike: I decided to go hiking for the first time since late March. First I had hurt my knee in April and had to take some time off and then, in May every one was staying home for weeks and weeks due to the Covid 19 outbreak in Taiwan.

Friday and Saturday a typhoon had passed by Taiwan and there had been heavy rain. So I was unsure of the state of the trails. But Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30 and decided to go. I messaged my friend to tell him I was going hiking and surprisingly he was up and impressively he jumped in a taxi and met me at the bus stop.

My plan was to climb Mu Mu Shan 畝畝山 starting near Lingjiao Station and then go over the mountain to end at the road near Huiyao Falls on the other side but I didn’t really know anything about it. It was just an area on the map I wanted to explore. When we arrived the trail head on the map seemed to be nonexistent. Maybe the trail has been damaged or maybe we just couldn't find it. However, we found another trail just a few meters further down the road, disappearing into the forest next to a drainage canal. It seemed to be going in the right direction and we thought it would join up with the trail we wanted, which it eventually did.

The trailhead

The first part of this trail is a little hard to follow but if you go slow, follow the flags and keep checking your location you should be fine. Of course if more people walk it, the trail will become clearer. During this part our phones showed we were completely in the middle of the forest and not on a trail, but someone else had clearly been through here. In some parts there were even old stone steps and we found the ruins of an old stone house and a more recent but apparently abandoned building. There were two forks that I remember. At the first, the trail on the right seemed to head back toward the road and we turned left. At the second, just past an abandoned metal building, there was a small sign post on a tree in Chinese that pointed to Pingxi Zi Shan and following the sign we turned left and uphill. The trail was unclear and very rough and overgrown but we kept following the flags, sometimes having to backtrack when we missed a flag—and in about an hour and half we joined the original path we had wanted. Here we turned right and uphill. 

 

 Before long we reached the small peak of Pingxi Zi Shan (411 m). From here the trail was much clearer and easier but still with some rough parts. The final push up to the summit of Mu Mu Shan was steep with some ups and downs. It was probably made harder by the July heat and the fact that I was feeling hungry and a little dehydrated. It took us about 3 hours and 45 minutes to reach the summit from the road. 

Pingxi Zi Shan

 

MuMu Shan does not have a view but there is some shade and it was nice to take a well earned rest and have some lunch and water. After maybe 30 minutes we headed down the other side of the mountain (toward the Shikongzi Historical Trail) 

 

Having a rest and a bite to eat on the summit

It was clear that the trail on this side was more popular and it was a lot easier going down. There was one fork not shown on the map but we went straight. It was very hot and by this point I realized I had not brought enough water. I was feeling a little uncomfortable and dreaming of coming upon someone selling cold drinks once we got back to the road. But on the way down we passed a clear stream with plenty of water. My friend drank right from the stream. Since I had iodine, I treated my water with iodine just in case and later after a drinking a full bottle of water was feeling much better. 

 

We came to the junction with the Shikongzi Historical Trail about an hour after leaving the summit. To get to the bus back to Muzha, its a left here but first we went right for the short detour to the Stone Raft Waterfall. This was a beautiful path beside a stream with deep pools. Generally it was well maintained but there were still some rough and eroded parts. Along the way you come to a waterfall on the right that flows over the path. Keep going further a short way to the Stone Raft Waterfall.

 

The Stone Raft Waterfall was absolutely beautiful and definitively the high-light of the walk. There was lots of water from the recent rain and a nice pool at the base of it for soaking and washing off. We stayed here for maybe the good part of an hour before going back out the way we came and following the trail out to the road. 

 

Stone Raft Waterfall had a nice pool at the bottom, perfect for cooling off on a hot day.

 

It was another hour's walk along the road to get to the Pingxi Zenkou bus stop. Along the way we passed Huiyao Falls. It was closed because of the COVID outbreak. When I had been here before it had been crowded but still worth a visit. Today we could only get a glimpse of it because the trail entrance was wrapped with yellow tape. I was thinking of visiting nearby Wanggu Waterfall. Its a beautiful waterfall in shaded glen. But when we got to the bus stop the bus was coming soon and I had been there twice before so we decided to take the bus home. 

Huiyao Falls on a previous visit.

It was a rewarding walk but if you wanted to do it the easy way and avoid a 7 plus hour hike you could just take the bus to the Pingxi Zenkou bus stop and walk for a little over an hour along the road to reach Stone Raft Waterfall.

Or for a slightly longer but easy walk, you could get off at Lingjiao Bus stop and walk into the village to see the Lingjiao Waterfall. There is an easy and clear trail connecting the village of Lingjiao to Wangu Waterfall that takes an hour or less. Then you could walk from Wangu to Haiyao Falls and Stone Raft Waterfall, before returning to the Pingxi Zenkou bus stop. The whole route would take between 3 and 4 hours. You could also drive and visit them all but I like walking. There is a shop selling drinks and snacks in Lingjiao near the train station.

Trail head GPS: 25.024281, 121.750932

MuMu Shan: 25.006655, 121.764033

Stone Raft Waterfall: 25.012472, 121.773734

https://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MjAxNzQzNzk=