Jay
Leading river traces regularly on my Meetup or Instagram 12 seasons a year.
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Jay
River:
中平溪 / Zhongping creekArea:
HualienRegion:
EastStart:
23.3871,121.29691We went to a tributary of Zhongping Creek (中平溪). We walked mostly on the hunting trail from the beginning to the fork, which took us two hours to reach and one hour to return. The trail was not easy to navigate because it was full of bushes. The creek is full of life. We saw a lot of fish, big crabs, and shrimp. We even saw a barking deer falling t ... oward us and running away. We also saw a goat on a slope, but it quickly fled. We were amazed by how much wildlife we encountered. We visited two waterfalls in the tributary. They were close to each other. The first one has a beautiful shape like the one in Qiedong Creek (茄苳溪) or Jianshanhu (尖山湖瀑布). We went up the waterfall by its right side (facing downstream). The bushwhacking was full of thorn vines—quite painful. We carefully climbed through bushes and thorn vines and set up a rope to climb back down to the creek. The second waterfall was just ahead of us. It was a 50-meter waterfall and looked very similar to 九龍瀑布 (Nine Dragons Waterfall) in Pingxi. If you trace up Zhongping Creek, you might reach Valau Waterfall. It's giant and can be seen from satellite images. However, the trace takes 12-13 hours and requires skills and massive stamina. -
River:
馬鞍溪 / Ma'an creekArea:
HualienRegion:
EastStart:
23.68982,121.37294A beautiful creek with a lot of climbing. We visited two waterfalls and a pool between them. The distance isn't long, but it took us a lot of time (eight hours in total). There's a third waterfall, but we didn't go there. Beginners will have a very hard time, but ordinary river tracers or people good at climbing should be fine. A rope is strongly r ... ecommended for this trip. We visited two waterfalls. The first one is quite beautiful, located in a half-encircled gorge. The second one is a three-tiered waterfall. Between the two waterfalls is a pool similar to Goddess' Pool in Melburry Creek (you need a rope here to make sure you can climb back after jumping in). -
River:
石門溪 / Shimen creekArea:
YilanRegion:
EastStart:
24.95185,121.91021The first waterfall is at 24.96,121.9085. It's 4 meters and has a nice pool to chill. On top of it are another two pools and you can jump into them. Trace further up for another 40 minutes-1 hour and you'll get to a 8-m waterfall. If you go above the 8-meter waterfall, two really tall waterfalls are around the corner. The one on the main stream is ... around 20-25 meters tall, and the other one on the left fork is also around that height. We went around the waterfall on the right side(facing downstream) and did a little bushwhack, but it was quite easy in general. There's webbing and a rope on the other side but it looked very sketchy to climb up, so we didn't go up on the left side(facing downstream). Shimen Creek is not only easy but also quite traffically available, just a train ride and a taxi from Dali 大里 or Daxi 大溪 station and you'll get to the trailhead.
