The Sikeba Trail is the outpost trail of the seven heroes of the Valley Pass, Malun Mountain. The forest is mostly covered with tall pines, and the fallen leaves of the pines pave the trail, making it quite comfortable to walk on! Along the way, you can visit the five-leaf pine mothers and the Eight Strong Men. If you have time or physical strength considerations, you may want to take this route.

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Sikeba Trail(斯可巴步道)

The entrance to the trail is on a section of Dongguan Road, on Taidian Lane, where there are many campgrounds run by indigenous residents and their own homes. I started directly from the campgrounds, and in the morning there were many children from the campgrounds playing in the alleys, and I wondered why they didn’t just stay in the grassy areas of the campgrounds and play.

Soon after you enter the trail, you will see a wooden toilet (toilet, if you remember correctly).

In the first half of the course, the forest is mostly broad-leaved, and in April there are many large leaves on the ground, so it’s not too easy to skid on the gentle terrain.

Cinquefoil Mom

Walking around, you will soon see the first spot on the map, the Five-leaf Pine Mom. There are five-leaf pines and two-leaf pines here in Taniguchi, the difference is that five-leaf pines have five pine needles in a bundle, and two-leaf pines have two bundles by analogy.

As usual, I walked at the end of the trail, taking pictures as I went. When I arrived, I found that two of my companions had already joined the other climbers, and I took a group photo with them, thinking that everyone was so warm and welcoming, and then we talked about them for a while before realizing that they weren’t climbers, but rather, they were aboriginal friends who regularly maintained the cleanliness of the trails, and I finally realized that one of them was the owner of the campsite where I stayed!

After leaving the Five Leaf Pine Mom the view is still a large expanse of broadleaf woodland and most of the climbs are fairly gently sloping.

The only small bridge in my memory.

It is difficult to see the sky after entering the forest.

It was a good day for light. I used to like to have sunlight in my photos of forest scenes so that there would be a clear contrast between light and shadow, but I’m not so obsessed with that anymore – it’s nice to have it, but there’s also a different kind of beauty without it.

The trail is an O-shaped loop, with an upward turn-off halfway up, which is the trail to Malun Mountain. We were on a three-day, two-night camping trip, and decided not to get too tired, so we only planned to take this outpost of the Malun Mountain trail (Scooby-Doo Trail).

From the last photo and the next few photos, you will notice that the floor color has changed to reddish brown because the forest has become a pine forest. There are also a lot of small pine cones on the ground, as to whether it is a two-leafed pine or a five-leafed pine, I didn’t look at the leaves, but just to appreciate it anyway!

I thought that the pine forest would accompany me all the way to the end, but the forest phase got mixed up later, and I had to be really careful about slipping in the second half of the downhill section.

In fact, all the way along the trail, I really saw a lot of broken wood fallen on the trail, some of the cuts are very neat, I do not know whether it is the big brother of the aboriginal people to help cut open, so that we, the tourists who climbed the mountain can walk a little better.

The hollowed out tree trunks have not yet fallen.

It started to fog up towards noon, and as I mentioned earlier, I used to only like the sunlight hitting the scene, but I realized that the atmosphere in the fog was great too!

I thought I could go faster on the second half of the downhill section, but there were more rocks on the way, so it was not as smooth as it should have been.

Small lizards with good coloring appeared in the middle of the trail, and if not for the fact that we were walking on a downhill section and our eyes needed to watch our feet at all times, we would have probably stepped on them.

You have to be careful about slipping on the leafy road, but it’s much more comfortable than the gravel road, and the crunching sound after stepping on it is really soothing!

The downhill section was getting smoother and smoother, and the final destination, the Eight Magnificent Men, was approaching – a small patch of cedar woodland was just around the corner.

Eight Heroes（八壯士）

The Eight Magnificent Men are eight huge pine trees, each growing on the slope next to the trail. When I arrived here, the environment was already surrounded by dense fog, it was like being in a fairyland ~ this is very close to the exit (also considered as another entrance), and I told my partner that I had taken a picture of the Eight Magnificent Men in the fog today, and I would come back in the morning to see if there was a chance of the sunshine coming in to take a picture of the Eight Magnificent Men in the light and shadow version ~ but I was lazy on the next day, so I returned to the camp. I rested for half a day in the campground before heading back.

Between the eight feat to the exit is a flat section, the broken wood seen on the way is even more than before, if there is a pavilion or bench in this area, I think it will be a very cozy picnic site ~, altitude of about 1,000 plus fog in the morning after the cool feeling is really good.