It was my first weekend in Taiwan and at the start I was hoping to go for some more serious mountain climbing but after realizing that I have no climbing permit, no gear or clothing and my Chinese vocabulary ("hello" and "thank You") not going to help in solving any logistic problems I decided to settle on mountain run in the Taipei area.
After some googling Yangmingshan was discovered and so the plan was created: I'll catch the bus to the park from the street close to my hotel. On the day before the weather was not very favorable to my plan: it was almost constantly raining. Tolerable to one more crazy customer demand hotel's concierge draw the park name in Chinese on the peace of paper (chances to find someone speaking English at Taiwan's street are close to zero) and provided me with instructions on finding the bus; look on his face was saying: "this crazy guy looking for troubles".
On Saturday I waked up early and after quick breakfast I was on my way.
I was not equipped for mountain climbing and not for mountain or trail running as well: I was dressed in long training trousers (not wanted to shock Taiwanese people on the bus by running tights), t-shirt and light rain jacket. I was also wearing road running shoes and NorhFace DogFish backpack with some runners jells and water bladder (I think this backpack was the only piece of suitable equipment).
On the way to the park (I just spelled to the bus driver "Yangmingshan" and was welcomed aboard hoping for the best) it was rainy and I was getting cold, so when we finally arrived I started to run almost from the bus door just in order to get warmer.
The scenery around was amazing.
I was switching between running and walking from time to time' most of the trails was rock, clean or covered by mud both equally slippery for road shoes, so I was constantly using my hands in order to keep balance (can only imagine how strange I looked for local tourists).
Thanks to bad weather the trails were almost empty from visitors and higher up the mountains I advanced less people I met (passing someone while running on mud trail was not an easy task).
Thanks to the map I checked at the entrance to the park navigation was not a problem, I was going to spend entire day running in the park so getting lost was not an issue (the only thing I cared for was getting running mileage).
The scenery was constantly changing, on some stage I was running on so called "Bamboo Trail".
Eventually I started traversing of the highest peaks (Seven Star Mountain).
Mt. Cising highest peak (1120m) was one of the coldest places during my adventure:
But on the next peak the wind was so strong that I was going forward constantly using hands just to grasp something solid.
Strong sulfur odor reminded me of the volcanic origin of the Taiwanese mountains
From time to time I was meeting some other tourists, most of them equipped good enough to climb Everest; in heavy boots, face masks and Polartec jackets, they looked at me jumping on them out of fog with complete disbelief (I not met too many westerners in Taipei, I guess big bold guy in t-shirt suddenly appearing out of nowhere looked completely out of place).
Most trails in Yangmingshan maintained in precise manner (my knees would like to meet less stone stairs) but still everything was amazingly clean and some nice surprises like the building on the picture below were pooping from the mist.
Everything went just fine, at the end of the day I was down from the mountains after summiting most of the peeks.
I survived a couple of controlled falls in the mud and eventually dirty, hungry and happy was allowed to board the bus back to the hotel.
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