Yangmingshan National Park (陽明山國家公園) - Part I (Mt Qixing)

Yangmingshan National Park 陽明山國家公園 is one of the nine national parks in Taiwan. It is located in the north of Taipei and is one of the most popular mountains in Taiwan, both for foreigners and for locals.

We can actually see Yangmingshan every day from our bedroom window. If the sky is clear, we can see the mountain tops. When airplanes land in Songshan Airport, the view is fantastic from where we stand.

Yangmingshan view from our bedroom window.

The national park offers great hiking, hot springs, lakes, flower blossoms, (stinking) sulfur deposits and several nice sceneries. Since there are so many trails, one must go there several times, because you really can't make them all within one day.

In the mid of October, we took Bus No 260 on the north side of the Taipei Main Station, North Exit 2. You can also consider it as just behind the Main Station opposite to Qsquare Mall. It is in front of a statue called Ai Fu with a kid and a father.
The bus trip took nearly 50min and cost 15NTD + 15NTD and it will pass by for example Jiantan Station (Shilin Night Market). We arrived to the Yangmingshan terminal station which is a big parking lot with lots of other buses and people.

 Yangmingshan terminal station.

The map of Yangmingshan.

 The Mt Qixing trail starts from this point.

From here, we walked a short trail of about 700m to the visitor center. Already on this short trail I thought it was quite tough. After we asked a couple of questions at the visitor center, we started our hiking on the Mt Qixing 七星山 trail. It says it is 2.4km to the top and takes about 2h. The trail was quite demanding, I must say.

We saw lots of funny things on our way: We met a man carrying an ubike around his neck when he was on his way down from the main peak. That's really impressive, because those bikes, which people can rent for free the first 30min, are not light. We also saw one guy wearing leather shoes, suit pants and a shirt. Furthermore, we saw people with other casual leather shoes, two men without shoes and very small kids hiking with grandparents. What surprised me and impressed me the most are all the old people being so active. Hiking and enjoying the nature is something they really like!

Mt Qixing is a dormant volcano and the main peak is 1120m above sea level. There are two peaks; East and Main. They are only about 300-400m from each other. The main peak is the highest in the whole Yangmingshan National Park. Even though it is just 1120m above sea level, it really took 2h to hike from the visitor center. We didn't even take a break.

On the east peak, there was a small stone indicating the top. We sat down and had some sandwiches that we bought before taking the bus. For two very hungry and weak persons lacking energy, they were very delicious. A lot of other people also took a lunch break there. Although it was not so high up, it was quite chilly up there, just around 18C. We were standing right in the middle of the clouds. Too bad it was too cloudy, because we couldn't really see any nice view from here.

After a short lunch break around 14.00, we walked to the main peak where we saw a big wood pole indicating its height and other stuff. There were a lot of people taking a break on the big benches. I bet most of them felt satisfaction and relief in their bodies after reaching the mountain top. For some of them, maybe it's their first time too. Like us.

After just a short break, we walked the Xiaoyoukeng 小油坑 trail down to the point where we could catch a bus. Our plan was first to walk from that point to Zhuzihu 竹子湖, which should be a nice place in the spring time when flowers blossom. Don't be fooled by the character 湖 (which stands for lake) in the name, because there is no lake there.

East peak of Mt Qixing.

Main peak of Mt Qixing.

 East peak.

Main peak.

Walking down is much easier than walking up of course and this 1.7km went faster. However, we stopped a few times along the road. There is a nice view point here and we could both see the city of Taipei and some other mountain tops. Also, we passed a couple of stinking sulfur deposits on the way down. They really smelled like a bad fart. Not only did they smell like rotten eggs, but they also looked like smashed eggs. It is cool learning that the volcano is still "spitting" out these kinds of stuff. Or rather, these are actually post-volcanic activities.

One of many sulfur deposits.

When we finally came down to Xiaoyoukeng, it was nearly 16.00 and the mini bus (No 108) was just there and about to leave. We didn't even have time for a small recovery, but needed to jump on the overcrowded bus. It was more like a roller coaster than a bus ride. It was basically throwing us from left to right and right to left if you don't hold on too well. We passed a few stops and saw interesting places like a foot hot spring (Lengshuikeng), the Suspension bridge (Lengshuikeng) and some other trails.

View from Xiaoyoukeng view point.

Panorama view from Xiaoyoukeng view point.

We just wanted to go back to the Yangmingshan terminal station to take Bus No 260 back to Taipei Main Station. We didn't want to stop to see the other places at all since we felt exhausted.

Reaching the peaks of Mt Qixing made us feel very satisfied. I believe we will come back to hike some other trails before going back to Sweden.