Shimenshan Trail is located on the Taiwan 14th A route, it is a simple Baiyue with a low level of difficulty, the trigonometric point is 3,237 meters above sea level, and the trail is only about 700 meters for a single trip. The surrounding scenery is quite fascinating, and we recommend that you take your time on the short trail to enjoy the scenery carefully! Let’s enjoy the beautiful scenery of the high mountains!

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Shimenshan Hiking Trail

It was the beginning of December, and I wanted to go to Aowanda to see the maple leaves, but they hadn’t turned red yet, so I decided to go to the Shimenshan Hiking Trail, which doesn’t take too long to complete, and you can see tourists walking along the ridge on the Taiwan 14th A route.

The Shimenshan trailhead is opposite to the Hohuanjian Mountain trailhead (across the road), and there is a small parking lot located right next to the road here – there is limited parking, and I was lucky enough to have someone leave to make way for me!

Almost the entire trail is on ridges.

At that time, the east side of the mountain range was filled with clouds, and when viewed from the ridge, the sea of clouds was visible, and in the distance, a few small hills were exposed, like small islands in the sea.

The time was between 3:30 and 4:00, the sun was already moving away from the top of my head, and the change of light and shadow between the mountain ranges was getting faster and faster. It was a day of strong air-conditioning moving southward, and it was still 7 degrees at noon near Wuling, but at 4:00 in the afternoon, the temperature here had already dropped to -2 degrees, I hoped that the sun would go down slower, so that I can have a little bit more sunshine to keep me warm~!

The trail goes along the side of the Taiwan 14th parallel, and at noon, when I arrived near Wuling, I was still dizzy, and the air was thin, so I wondered if I would be dizzy the whole day…. I also became very breathless easily, and even after eating Chinese food, I completely recovered, maybe low blood sugar is one of the factors! It is recommended to bring some spare food with you.

The trail climbs about 180 meters, and it’s a very easy climb.

The whole forest can be seen along the trail, and there are signs saying that the forest is being restored, so we should be careful not to enter it by mistake.

This furry thing grows on the sword bamboo, and it doesn’t seem to be a flower. Wikipedia looks at it, and mentions that the color of the flower is dark red, so I don’t know what it is~?

It is difficult to find tall plants on the ridges, except for the bamboo forest and other short alpine plants.

After 4 o’clock, the light is divided into beams by the mountains, a prelude to the approaching dusk.

At this time, the bamboo forest and the small grasses are gradually turning into warm colors, which is much more beautiful than at noon!

After a short walk, we arrived at the triangular point of Shimenshan Mountain, where we could see the north peak of Chilai in the east direction, and there was a tourist enjoying the view in front of the cliff, which I thought was a nice scene, and I helped him to take a photo with the view of the mountain! I didn’t take any photos at the triangle point, because there were a lot of tourists trying to take photos, it was a bit confusing.

With the darkening of the sky, we were all ready to go back to the airport, it was only -2 degrees Celsius at this time, looking at the front of the adults with children, really admirable, the children do not feel afraid of the cold, full of energy.

The backs of our fellow travelers, we were almost the last ones to go back, because it took a lot of time to take photos, if not for the freezing hands, I would have taken longer…. I would have taken longer if my hands weren’t freezing….

The moment the sun was buried in the mountains, there was no more sunlight on the 14th parallel, fewer cars, no more tourists, and you could only hear the whistling wind blowing ~ very quiet.