Hiking Taiwan - Taroko National Park - Zhuilu Old Trail

In November we travelled to Taiwan to meet with our friend - Jure from Slovenia - who´s living and working in Taipei since last year. After spending three days in Taipei gazing at the skyscrapers, tasting local food and hanging out with the locals we sat on a train and drove to Hualien, a relaxed beach town just next to the Taroko National Park.

National park permits:
Preparations for visiting Taiwan´s national parks is a bureaucratical mess, almost as much as opening an enterprise in Germany. Reason: Government only allows 50-130 (depending on the trail) people walk same trail on the same day.
You need a police permit for almost every park you go to, but that´s an easy one - you just drop by a police/ranger station and fill out a form. For really dangerous tracks you need to get a mountain permit, and this is where it gets complicated. You need to go to the special gov website (https://npm.cpami.gov.tw), pick your desired trail, specific date and fill out the information about you and your group and submit the application sometime between 1-4 months prior your visit.

History of the Zhuilu Old Trail
Once part of the old Cross – Hehuan Mountain Road during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, the infamous Zhuilu Old Trail was originally built as a hunting path through the mountains by Truku tribes people in the 1800’s.
It wasn’t widened to its current 90cm width until the occupying Japanese in the early 1900’s needed a route to move heavy artillery through the treacherous mountains. (source: http://www.islandlifetaiwan.com/on-the-edge-of-insanity-taiwans-zhuilu-old-trail/)

Anyway, we didn't really know what Jure was dragging us into. The trail was only 6km long due to some repairs on the extended part (so 11-12km in total), time estimate was 3-5 hours for both ways and elevation difference was 800m - nothing that we couldn't manage. Half-way through I realised we´ll be walking one of the highest cliff-trails in the world - same hight as the Taipei 101; around 500m.

After some time we got adjusted to the height and could finally enjoy the view across the mountains, gorge and valleys.

I`d definitely recommend everyone to go to the Taroko National Park - and if you need some more information, get in touch.

Check my recent trips here: https://www.instagram.com/trakulja/