Founder of Trace Taiwan. Most of the Traces you can find attached to my profile will be located fairly close to Taipei. Many of these can be completed in a single day if your willing to get up early.
-
Located not too far away from Taipei city this makes for a perfect day trip. If you aren't up for river tracing it is possible to hike in and out to the waterfall at the end, though the trace is more scenic, enjoyable and makes for a better adventure than the hike in my opinion. This is a nice easy river trace through a wide-open valley with nice ... mountain views on either side. You can park at the GPS point and walk further along the trail than you are able to drive to get down into the water. You should be able to get into the water just above one major waterfall, you can walk back and take a look at it if you want before heading forward. The way upstream is a bit tiring but there are no major obstacles till the ending GPS point where you will find a large waterfall with a nice pool or swimming in below teeming with fish. You can take one of the two branches at the fork further up than the waterfall if you wish, the climbing becomes a bit more difficult and you shouldn't continue this way unless you are confident in your abilities.
-
A really nice trace within a day trip from Taipei if you wake up early. This is within my top 3-day trip traces from Taipei I would say. The first 20 mins or so isn't anything special, however, once you climb over around the "man-made waterfall" it gets gorgeous quite quickly. There are tons of waterfalls, clean water, great landscapes, cliff faces ... to the side of you, and you really do feel "in the wild". You will at a certain point reach a fork, we stayed to the right at the fork and continued on till the end. If you wanted you could try left though I am unsure what you will find. At the very end if it has been raining you will find one massive final waterfall. From there you are going to need to backtrack to around the waterslide. From the waterslide, there should be a trail on your left-hand side you can use to get out.
-
This is a really really easy trace as far as there not being any real difficult climbs or such along the way. I would recommend this place to beginners as it's easy to access and you shouldn't have any issues with it. It is one of the more accessible outdoor adventures in Taiwan. As it's not too far away from society I wouldn't drink the water. At c ... ertain points, you may find people BBQing. There are a few places where the water is deep enough to swim if you want. As such if you can't swim be prepared to deal with them. There is also a point further upstream you can start this trace if you want it to take a little longer located at 25.205517,121.520577. Personally, I liked the second half of the trace more but that's up to you.
