Yushan

Standing with the other hikers on the cobblestone staging area on Tataka Saddle, I could make out the telltale outline of Jade Mountain’s southern ridge through the morning fog. The clouds were packed into the valley below and above us like shoppers waiting for Walmart to open the morning after Thanksgiving. Yushan, as Jade Mountain is known locally stands at an impressive 3,952 meters, or almost 13,000 feet. My friend Daniel and I had agreed to make the trip here for a weekend hike to the peak.
Our group made a late start getting on the trail some time after 9:00 AM and we began at a leisurely pace our ascent to Paiyun Lodge, our destination for the evening. So leisurely was our pace, that it took us the better part of 3 hours to hike the five kilometers to our predetermined lunch break and another 2 and a half hours from there to the completion of our day. However slow the hike may have been, it was not without reward. The views from the trail included some of the finest scenery I have ever beheld. Jagged edged mountains covered in cypress, hemlock, and arrow bamboo were so steep that they seemed to defy gravity thrusting up from their roots at almost ninety degree angles. The mountains here were formed by the colliding of the Pacific and the Asian plates and looking at the steep formidable slopes all around, I appreciated that the original collision must have been something to behold. One can stand on the trail at 10,000 feet and look at stones that once rested on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. As such, to hike the trail is in some ways to time travel; each step takes you over billions years old terrain.
To hike at any latitude above the 3,000 meter mark during the month of January is to invite an encounter with the elements. Almost any peak, from Argentina to Appalachia, is going to be covered in some amount of snow and ice in January. But, lucky for us, this January, at least during the time we were on the mountain, Yushan remained snow and ice free. In fact, the weather was so atypical that on the hike up the first day the temperatures soared into the 70’s. After about ten minutes into the hike, I had shed my thin raincoat, stocking hat, and gloves. My fellow Taiwanese hikers opted to sweat, and remained in heavy down coats for most of the rest of the day.
After reaching Paiyun Lodge, our guide prepared the best camp meal I think I’ve ever eaten. The entire meal was made from scratch out of her backpack, and was cooked over three tiny camp stoves. As the sun set the first day, the temperatures immediately plummeted to the freezing mark, and we all hustled into the lodge for warmth. The structure we slept in was called a “lodge” but for all intents and purposes, it was a simple walled structure with no fire, no heat, a cobblestone floor, and rough cut bunk. Nevertheless, we were all thankful to be inside with four walls protecting us from the bitter mountain wind. The enormous spider that crawled down the wall next to my head, as the lights were about to go out, seemed to be thankful for the enclosure as well.

We rose quite early the next morning, at about 3 AM for the hike to the summit. Our guides, who had done this ascent over a hundred times (I’m not exaggerating), thought it best to get to the peak before sunrise. We were told the view was well worth the early rising. Despite the lack of coffee, I would later come to agree with their decision. Unfortunately, Daniel, upon whom I had relied for his mandarin speaking and reading ability, had neglected to inform me to bring a headlamp for the hike. Between the two of us we had one working flashlight (Daniel had left his on in his pack all night and it was deader than the spider that had crawled next to my head). All the rest of our group had brand new state of the art hikers headlamps, flashy hiking sticks, and the latest in elemental protection (puffy down mountaineering jackets, gore-tex, etc.). We huddled, after a quick breakfast, in the phosphorescent gleam of about a dozen headlamps as the guide gave us our last minute instructions on what to expect the last 4 kilometers to the peak.
The ascent, as the day before, was slow and labored. We stopped about every fifteen minutes to “catch our breath” and to wait for the stragglers to catch up. During these breaks, I tried to wake up (though the effort was futile without coffee). There is something spectacular about hiking at night. The stars were bright without the thick atmosphere and city fog to get in the way. The moon was so bright, in fact, that the headlamps became mostly unnecessary. As we climbed higher, the trees began to thin until only the dense gnarled juniper bushes remained. With the unobstructed view, we could see west to the ocean, as well as the glimmer and glow of two of Taiwan’s larger southern cities. Above us was two-thousand meters of scree; billions of years worth of accumulated avalanche debris, broken rocks, and massive boulders (some as large as a house).

As the trees thinned, so did the air around us. Soon our breaks were coming more often and lasting much longer. Standing in the dark, surrounded by little clouds of our own breath, stamping our feet to ward of the cold, we could hear the wind whistling against the fluted peak above us. Soon the whistle was a loud roar, sounding like the turbines of a jet engine as warm air from Taiwan’s west coast was sucked up and around the jagged spine of Yushan. Ironically, we were nearly at the cruising altitude for some small jets.
The last thousand meters was up a nearly vertical face. Our ascent became a series of short zigzagging switchbacks. At this point the wind was so loud that we had to shout to be heard above the wash of noise. The suction too at this altitude was incredible. Near the peak I looked up at the hiker above me just in time to see his backpack rain cover get stripped from its hold on his pack and was swept away so fast that almost instantly it became a mere speck on the horizon.

There are few feelings that compare with bagging a peak as tall and formidable as Yushan. The view, standing that morning on the top of Taiwan was breathtaking and beautiful almost to the point of painful. The western face broke away from the peak almost a sheer drop, craggy, lunar, and still cradled in the cool shade of morning. To the East, as far as the eye could see, were endless clouds. The west coast of Taiwan is almost perpetually under cloud cover and so the locals call it the “Sea of Clouds”.


Minutes after arriving at the peak hot coffee was being passed around, pictures were being snapped, and I had to chuckle as a few cell phones came out for the requisite call to loved ones as the hikers bragged about their view. Then, silently, almost without notice, the corner of the sun crested the cloudy horizon and we became the first souls in Taiwan to watch the sunrise. We spent the next half an hour bathed in the most brilliant pinks and oranges, sipping coffee, and soaking in the beauty of our view. When it came time to leave, I did so reluctantly. I was the last person off the peak, not wanting to let go of the incredible view. Stepping over the divide and back onto the western face we were submerged back into the cool palette of grays and blues. On the way up in the dark, we had been unable to appreciate the full scale of the terrain. Going down we became painfully aware of what a misstep could mean. A kicked stone could fall for almost 500 meters before coming to rest on the scree slope. Chances for starting a landslide were abundant, and now, fully awake we gripped our precarious handholds with renewed intensity.
Once back at the lodge we repacked our gear and began the leisurely hike out. Again the sun was high and soon coats and hats became unnecessary and we took our time bidding the mountain farewell.