The hiking trails of Taroko Gorge can be found at eleva­tions from a few tens of meters to nearly 1000 meters. Visitors can choose routes that best suit their physical condition. We visited the Shakadang Trail at 60 meters eleva­tion and Zhuilu Old Road at 765 ­meters, viewing the gorge and its eco­logy from different angles. We also followed the Taroko hiking trail volunteer team—the longest-­established such team in Taiwan’s public sector—onto the Dali‡Datong Trail to see how they use local resources to maintain the paths.

Qingshui Cliff is a sheer rock face that plunges into the Pacific Ocean from average elevations of over 800 meters.

The Shakadang Trail

The Shakadang Trail runs above the Shakadang River. Visitors hiking the trail can hear the river’s gurgling flow echoing in the gorge, and can observe the special eco­logy in the folds and gulls (eroded cavities) that took shape in the gorge millions of years ago. Senior guide Lin Mao-yao explains that this path was built back in the era of Japanese rule. At that time the authorities wanted to develop hydroelectric power, so they used explosives to blast away the rock here to make a branch of the construction access road.

The air at Taroko Gorge is very clean, a fact to which plants bear witness. Lin points to lichen on a rock face and says: “This only appears in places with clean air and high humidity.” Lichen is formed by a symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi. Different combinations of algae and fungi produce differently colored lichens, and you can observe a wide vari­ety of lichens along the trails of Taroko Gorge. In addition, lichen secretes acidic substances, accelerating the weathering of rock into soil. This is beneficial for plant growth, so that you can find a rich variety of life on the rock walls.

The lives of the Truku indigenous people are insepar­able from plants, and you can get a glimpse of their culture from the plants along the Shakadang Trail. Pointing to some ­ramie plants, with their serrated leaf margins, Lin says: “This is material that indigenous people once used to make clothing.” The Truku people would boil ramie in water, dry it in the sun, and separate out the fibers, which they wove into cloth. In the middle part of the Shakadang Trail we come to the “5D Cabin” site, a location where Truku people cultivate crops, so named because there used to be five houses here. The Truku call this place Swiji (“banyan”), reflect­ing the fact that banyans are the predominant trees in the Shakadang area. All around one can see banyan roots growing out of the rock face.

Taroko National Park trail volunteers Fang Ruikai (left) and Lin Guowen (right) have been maintaining trails by hand for 12 years.

Zhuilu Old Road

Zhuilu Old Road runs close by a cliff, and is the steepest and most dangerous trail in Taroko Gorge, but for this very reason it offers fantastic views. One can see the clouds floating over the peak of Tashan across the way, and look down to the Liwu River and road more than 700 ­meters below. Moving along the trail you also will see an ever-­richer variety of unique plant life, as Lin explains: “Many species that migrated southward in the ice ages came to Taiwan, but as the ice retreated and the Taiwan Strait appeared, they were left to face one of two fates: to go extinct, or to evolve into species endemic to Taiwan. In Taroko Gorge in particular, the gorge topography blocked possible ­migration routes, so that many plants evolved into locally endemic species that are found only in Taroko.”

Among the plant species thus far known to science, Lin explains, there are 63 whose Chinese names refer to places or mountains within Taroko National Park. They include the Taroko oak (Quercus tarokoensis); Price’s climbing rose (Rosa pricei), called the Taroko rose in Chinese; the red-­spotted rhodo­dendron (Rhododendron ­hyperythrum), called the Nanhu rhodo­dendron; and Poner­orchis kiraishiensis, called the Qilai red orchid. Of these 63, fully 56 are endemic to Taiwan.

The former Badagang Police Station on Zhuilu Old Road is located on rocky ground with a dry microclimate. There you can see Taroko oak trees, with their bristly, fine-sawtoothed leaf margins. Walking further upward, Lin points out two rare species: the Taroko hornbeam (Carpinus hebestroma) and the Taroko barberry (Berberis taroko­ensis). He says: “The Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center, which preserves tropical and subtropical plants from around the world, considers the Taroko hornbeam very important.” Although Zhuilu Old Road is located in a subtropical area at less than 1000 meters elevation, it is exposed to the northeasterly monsoon winds, so the ambient temperature is low, and even cold-loving plants like the Formosan juniper (Juniperus formosana) grow here.

The ecologically rich Zhuilu Old Road was a police road during Japanese rule, used for patrolling the mountain areas where the Truku people lived and for transporting supplies for the police. In 1914, a police inspector named Masa Umezawa, who was an expert in mountain road construction, led a work crew to build a road along the Zhuilu Cliff. But on seeing the cliff, workers brought in from Japan refused to tackle it, and Umezawa had to recruit young indigenous people to carry out the blasting and chiseling work along the cliff face.

Work on the Zhuilu Cliff road took seven months to complete and cost 37 lives. Nelson Yang and Hsu Ju-lin, scholars of historic trails in Taiwan, found from histor­ical documents that after the road was opened, Japanese scholars began to use it for access to study the natural history of the middle and upper reaches of the Liwu River. For example, Dr. Masamitsu Oshima (1884-1965), who first described the Formosan landlocked salmon, was escorted by police along this road as far as the former Tabito Police Station (Truku name Tpdu; now the village of Tian­xiang). He announced to the Truku people that he would pay a high price for Mikado pheasants, and the next day he received 15 pairs of these birds, which he later took back with him to Japan.

Along the Shakadang Trail one can see this enormous water pipe, which dates to the era of Japanese rule.

Local materials

We traveled with trail volunteers to the Dali-Datong Trail and watched how they work. Senior trail volunteer Lin Guowen explains the process: “We plan trail repairs around the seasons, going to trails high in the mountains in summer and staying at low altitudes in winter, to ensure that when there are projects that take a long time there will be suitable weather.” Next, he points to a paint mark sprayed on a stone and says: “When we do site surveys we first mark the work area. Also, it’s best if we come out on rainy days so we can observe which way the rainwater flows and decide how best to do the work so that the water drains away. Finally, we assign team members to tasks that are suited to their skills and physical condition.”

The trail volunteers value teamwork, and each takes the initiative to find things to do that fit their abilities. Some people work together to move large stones weighing 20 to 30 kilograms, while others gather sandy soil and smaller stones to make the trail surface. When working, if a team member moving a heavy rock calls out “I’m coming through,” the others must immediately stop what they are doing and let them pass before returning to work. “Sometimes when everyone is working together, there will be friction caused by communication problems, so in the evening I have to take a drink with those involved so they can talk it out.” Lin Guowen laughs as he says that after many years of interacting with each other, the team members have built up a good rapport, and they can always reach agreement when working on site.

Lin Guowen and Fang Ruikai are working together, and after examining the path’s surface for a while they go to find some large stones. “You need to fetch materials from at least 20 meters away from the trail, so as not to disturb the slope next to the trail.” Lin Guowen explains: “When working on a trail you have to see which way water flows and put in catchwater drains to take it away from the trail, otherwise the trail will become thick with mud as the slopes are scoured by water over time, making the going difficult for hikers.” At this time, Fang brings over a large stone, and after thinking about how best to place it, sets it firmly into the soil. Finally the two take turns hammering stones on the trail surface so that stone fragments fill in the gaps. “In this way the trail is not only comfortable to walk on, we can prevent it from turning muddy,” says Lin.

At the time of our visit, this maintenance project has reached the 0.7 kilometer mark of the Dali‡Datong Trail. Volunteers recommend that besides taking the nearby Dekalun Trail, people can also follow this trail, although its entrance is harder to spot, to get to the old Truku villages of Skadang (Dali in Chinese) and Xoxos (Datong). In this way they can appreciate the comfort of a hand-built trail, and learn about the spirit of ecological conservation by examin­ing the techniques used to build it. With each stone that you step on, you will find out more about Taroko’s rich mineral resources and unique natural scenery.            

From the Shakadang Trail one can see the clean, clear waters of the Shakadang River as well as folded rock strata.

Once a construction road, the Shakadang Trail was blasted out of the rock in the Japanese era for the purposes of building a hydroelectric plant.

Taroko National Park is rich in natural resources, and the trail volunteers can easily find materials for maintaining the trails wherever they happen to be.

It is thanks to these highly experienced volunteers that park visitors can walk along safe and comfortable trails.