Tiaomi Historic Trail: A Quiet Route to Mt Thumb, Taipei
A quick post today of one of the lesser known trails around the Four Beast Mountains. I've previously written extensively about different routes and peaks in that area here. This is a quiet and easy route that starts at the end of Lane 600, Alley 100, Wuxing Street, and joins the larger hiking area just below Thumb Mountain. The BL5 bus stops at the nearby Taihe Park, otherwise Goshare and Wemo scooters can be driven to the same park. The trail is mostly paved with stone steps, so if that's not your thing read no further.
Climbing from Taihe Park
Dexing Coal Mine
The south mountains are riddled with coal mines and while many are lost in the forest a few have been restored as little parks. The start of the trail is by one such mine and you can go someway inside this one. Dexing mine began operations in the early Japanese era and was closed around 1941. This was quite early compared to other mines and it was a fairly small mine too.
There is no lighting inside the tunnel so if you don't have a smartphone bring a torch. There's also a fair bit of water dripping from the tunnel ceiling!
The Hike
After the mine, cross the attractive little bridge to the right (first pic) and begin the climb. The trail follows a quiet valley and heads past a few temples. Near the top of the trail you'll see a temple on your left. You'll need to pass through this temple to continue. If you don’t go through the temple and instead continue upwards you’ll pass the remains of a hoist and emerge in the vast Chongde Street cemetery complex.
Chongde Cemetery and the old hoist
Looking back at the temple after walking through it
The trail beyond the temple is quite level and soon you'll be passing some residential communities. I'm always surprised by how far into the mountains the valley developments around Wuxing Street go. The trail ends on one of these streets. Turn right and head uphill through the housing for about 100 meters. A lot of it is surprisingly abandoned or rundown. I guess it's a little too inconveniently located for most. You'll see a trail heading uphill on your right.
From here it's a short climb up to a few viewpoints of the city. You'll pass a rock temple with a large collection of Guanyin statues, not unlike the one under Mt Thumb. There's also another small Buddhist shrine up here and a Christian style cross, though I'm not sure who or what that is dedicated to.
From here the route is quite straightforward. There's a fork in the trail at one point, but either route will take you towards Thumb Mountain, and you'll soon find yourself on the more crowded Nangang Ridge Trail described here.
Mt Thumb panorama
The adventures that make up these entries are often posted as Instagram stories at tomrookart first. So give that a follow too if you like as it can sometimes be a year or more before stuff turns up here! For some more professionally made maps of Taiwan I keep a gallery here.