In a bit of a break from the usual offerings on this site, this post is dedicated to the Taiwan Thousand Miles Trail Association. No one has asked me to write this post. I’m not getting anything for it. It’s just a really great organisation, and I’m happy to be able to spread its message a little wider.
What is Taiwan Thousand Miles Trail Association?
How did I hear about TMI Trail?
What is eco-craft trail building?
Why should you join a volunteering day?
What equipment do you need to participate?
What is it like to attend a trail building working holiday?
What is Taiwan Thousand Miles Trail Association?
The Taiwan Thousand Miles Trail Association (TMI Trail for short, or 千里步道 in Chinese), is a non-profit organisation that—since 2006—has been overseeing the protection of Taiwan’s natural and cultural beauty through the medium of interconnected hiking trails. The work they do is diverse, but each project or task undertaken aims to further the group’s overarching goals of promoting a version of travel that is sustainable, eco-friendly and genuinely beneficial to the communities being visited. To this end, TMI Trail works hand-in-hand with local communities, businesses, and individuals to promote the type of grass-roots-led development of infrastructure that will endure even without outside support.
The association has worked with communities to help them develop small-scale and sustainable tourist activities. It brings local residents together to work on projects such as the Raknus Selu Trail, and local governments too (the Tamsui Kavalan Trails required extensive collaboration between the New Taipei City and Yilan Governments). It has made sure that Taiwan is represented at international events, such as the Asia Trails Conference, which, thanks to TMI Trail, was hosted in Taiwan in 2022. It has boosted the profile of Taiwan’s path by forging twinned and sister trails relationships with other hiking trails around the world. It has pushed to get extra bus stops added to a route so that hikers don’t need to use private transport (so far, I think only one has been added—apparently, this is a massive challenge). It has published written material about some of the trails it has worked on, and engages local historians and keepers of culture to make sure that the value of these trails are not lost to future generations. And of course, it also promotes the kind of hand-built trails that anyone joining one of the TMI Trail volunteer days will be able to work on.
How did I hear about TMI Trail?
I first heard of them while walking the Tamsui-Kavalan Trails (a network of historic trading routes and villagers’ trails spanning the hills between Taipei and Yilan). This route is one of several that TMI Trail played a key role in reviving.
The next time I crossed paths with the organisations was a couple of years later, when I attended an event at Taipingshan National Forest Recreation Area that they were hosting in conjunction with the Forestry Bureau. On that occasion, participants were shown several examples of TMI Trail’s eco-craft trail-building techniques and I learned that much of the group’s work is done by harnessing the power of volunteers who attend “working holiday” trail-building workshops. (The “working holiday” label is the name that TMI Trail uses for the activities, but they’re mostly just single-day or weekend events.)
I was finally able to attend a couple of these sessions after years of wanting to. The rest of this post will be used to detail what it’s like to volunteer with TMI Trail and to share some of what I learnt while participating.
What is eco-craft trail building?
In all of their printed and online literature, TMI Trails refers to their methods as eco-craft trail building. What this boils down to when you look at the nitty-gritty of building trails is actually very simple. TMI Trail constructs trails that have as minimal an impact on the local environment as possible. No heavy machinery is brought in to churn up the land. No unnecessary concrete that will leech into the soil and crumble after a few years. No imported stones that don’t match the local landscape. If you take these out of the equation, the tools you’re left with are locally sourced stone and human effort-exactly what people had at their disposal hundreds of years ago when many of Taiwan’s trails were first constructed. In fact, more than a few of the trails written about on this site have sections that were constructed using exactly these methods in previous centuries.
That human effort component? That’s where the volunteering days come into the equation.
Why should you join a volunteering day?
If you hike frequently in Taiwan, it’s almost certain that you’ve walked on volunteer-built trails. Many of the suburban hiking trails close to cities are maintained by local retirees, and even deeper into the mountains, routes are often marked, cleared and made safer by hiking groups. And if you’ve ever walked the whole of the Taipei Grand Trail, then you will have stepped on paths repaired by TMI Trail. Given the massive role of volunteer labour in keeping paths walkable, it makes sense that any Taiwan-based hiking lover would want to give back.
That aside, there are other reasons why joining this kind of activity is a wonderful way to spend a day. It’s great exercise. I was in bed by 8pm the night of my first volunteering session and had the deepest, longest sleep I’ve had for a while! It is a massive endorphins-booster. There’s something immensely cheering about being out in the elements and working cooperatively with others to get a job done. It’s exceedingly satisfying. Being able to see what your efforts have helped to complete is a great feeling. In my case, seeing the massive pile of rocks we’d been able to shift, or the completed repairs to a section of trail felt wonderful. It gives you a greater appreciation for the paths you walk on. Since becoming aware of TMI Trail’s work, I’ve started to pay close attention to what type of trail materials have been used to build a trail, and it’s made me really appreciate the beauty and skill in a hand-crafted trail. It gives you a way to connect with the land on a deeper level. I wouldn’t really call myself a spiritual person, but there’s undoubtedly something beyond the physical that happens as result of this process. During the insight sharing session at the end of one of our volunteer days, someone said that they felt as if building trails this way made you leave a little part of yourself embedded in the earth here, and that sums up my feelings pretty well. Something of the communal soul of our group will forever be mixed up with the rocks and the soil of that trail. Each one of those rocks was passed hand-to-hand along every single member of our team at least four times. By the end, each rock was known to us. Some even had nicknames. I was near the start of the chain at one point, and a rock was christened “chicken drumstick”. Two chains later, I found myself at the end of the chain and I heard “Chicken drumstick is coming!” from people who had been nowhere near it during the original christening. Then, when it came to the placing, each rock was so carefully considered. Turned over and over, looked at this way and that in order to find one to match a specific need. In the case of the trail we were working on, we were also working with the ghosts of master trail builders from the early 1900s. Much of their grand work has weathered countless earthquakes, typhoons and storms, so our job was to follow the guide they had left us with so that their original plan could live on. In our group there were a couple of retirees who had grown up walking this path barefoot in their youth. I can’t even begin to imagine the strength of the connection between them and this place.
What equipment do you need to participate?
The only equipment you’ll need to prepare yourself is suitable footwear and clothing, sun protection, a water bottle, and your own bowl/utensils. Welly boots (rain boots for those who need a translation) and wet-weather gear are advised. The organisation will usually provide a light lunch and a water dispenser. If you have your own helmet and gloves, you can bring those too, but if you don’t, they will be provided for you.
What is it like to join a trail-building event with TMI Trail?
Day 1 – Gathering Materials
We arrived at the designated meeting point at about 8:15. We were ticked off on the attendance sheet, given a name tag, and signed the insurance form (TMI Trail applies for insurance for anyone participating in this kind of event). By 8:30, everyone had gathered and we listened to a brief outline of the plans for the day from Xiao Kao, who is one of the TMI coordinators, and Mr Zhang, a local resident. Mr. Zhang is also head of the Shi’en Historic Trail workstations-one of six work stations spread along the length of another long-distance trail (the Raknus Selu Trail) for the purpose of protecting and promoting the route. There was a brief round of self-introductions, and it was interesting to find out who people were and why they’d agreed to get out of bed so early. There were several repeat volunteers, but the majority of us were first timers. Some, like Teresa and myself, are hikers who feel this is a good way to give back. Some are local residents who wanted to get involved to improve their community. And a couple were students (one high schooler who’d brought his dad, and a first-year uni student) who were there to fulfill a volunteering criteria for one of their courses.
The first item on the day’s agenda was to visit the closest temple to pray for good weather and a trouble-free day of work. Led by Mr Zhang, we all filed up a narrow walkway behind someone’s house to offer bananas and incense to the local land god.
Respects paid, we returned to the worksite and listened to an explanation of what all the various tools were and how they should (and shouldn’t) be used.
There were also demonstrations of how to carry rocks in pairs or groups. Teresa very kindly nominated me to be the demonstrator for the pair carrying technique, but that backfired on her spectacularly because she was then called on to be a pretend rock for a demonstration of the team carrying technique.
Each person was kitted out with a helmet and gloves, and then with no more fanfare, we were let loose and instructed to gather 200 rocks.
We were asked to gather specific amounts of large (30-50cm) and small (pineapple-sized) rocks from the land in and around a small stream. This is a little unlike the group’s usual methods, since the rocks will need be transported to the spot to where they’ll later be used. The reason for this is that it’s pretty much impossible to collect rocks at the location of the trail in need of repair. According to one of the TMI Trails people, more commonly, rocks will be collected to order from the vicinity of the trail being repaired. In fact, Mr Zhang, who had grown up walking sections of old trail in this area before there was a road put through, said that the original trail builders had the same problem and also had to gather stones from the stream.
Those of us who were new to it hung back for a minute or two to figure out what we were meant to be doing, but before long, we were being passed rocks from those who’d waded out to get stuck in, and soon everyone got into their stride.
Separate piles of big and small rocks gathered on the stream bank, and after about 90 minutes, we’d amassed what the organisers thought should be enough. Someone had retrieved the bananas from the land god’s altar, and we all paused for a snack and a drink.
After the break, it was time to get on with the exhausting task of carting all those stones up the short steep slope to the road. We settled into a relay system, with people stationed at different points up and down the hill to take over the load from those heading up. You do not know happiness until you have experienced the sweet relief of having a huge rock lifted from your arms. Those in charge made sure we carried the bulk of the larger stones first, saying that if they were left to last, they’d be unbearable. Smaller rocks were carried up in bucketloads of three or four at a time, middling ones were carried up one by one, and the largest were carried up in webbed bags with a person holding up each corner-the rocks passing hands several times on their journey.
The pile beside the road looks deceptively small, but I can assure you that felt like an awful lot!
Once every last rock that we’d collected had been transported up to the road, the whole team returned to the stream to sit in the shade and share a lunch of boiled eggs (from Mr Zhang’s chicken coop), and satisfyingly carb-head zongzi.
In the afternoon, we took a short walk up the road to visit Shuilian Bridge Trail, which is where the rocks will be put to use. As we walked, we were shown where the local authorities’ overzealous attempts to neaten the trail (“They’re only concerned about the risk of tourists calling to complain that the grass is too tall or the trail is not smooth enough.”), and the subsequent soil erosion caused by the loss of the roots that previously held it firm (“We need to thank these tree roots. They’re helping us protect this part of the trail. Without them, we’d have to fix this part too.”). Mr Zhang pointed out where the old bridge had been made safer by adding an additional railing, and outed his cousin as being the little reprobate who shoved ones of the original stones off the century-old bridge and into the water below. He talked about what it was like to walk these paths as a kid on his way to and from school, and it was fascinating to see what has endured and what has changed over the years.
Day 3 – Repairing a Century-Old Trail
I had to work the following Saturday, so we were unable to attend the second day of the program, but we went back for the third. As with the previous session, things kicked off with self-introductions followed by a safety talk. There were a few faces that we recognised from the first day, and others who had joined on day two, and even a handful of people who were attending for the first time. Among the new faces were a mum with two kids who are frequent hikers wanting to repay the community somehow, a woman who’d driven from Nantou to learn because she was hoping to implement the techniques on a trail in her area, and a guy who said he’d come for the exercise.
After the safety talk, we walked up to where we were going to be working for the day, and began the process of getting all the tools, stones and gravel where they needed to be. The tools went first, with each of us carrying a hammer or a pick and depositing it by Shuilian Glutinous Rice Bridge along with our bags. Then, taking only waterbottles, we headed back up to the road to deal with the rocks. Luckily for us, the workers the day before had already handled about two-thirds of the task, but we still had lots of rocks and gravel to shift. There were about thirty or so of us volunteers and we formed a human chain to pass sack after sack after sack of gravel down. Once all the sacks had been passed along to the end of the chain, everyone shuffled further down and the process got repeated. I think we had to do this four times to get everything from the road to where it needed to be. So if you happen to walk this trail and notice a newer section of path, just stop and consider a moment. 30 people passed that rock, hand to hand four times to get it to where it is!
Once the heavy lifting had been done, we were split up into smaller groups to fix problems in different areas.
Our group was tasked with shoring up a small section that had broken and installing some breakers in the channel beside the steps so that the water doesn’t run so fast in heavy rain. (If the water is able to run unchecked, it scours the earth away, gradually eating more and more of it, until it eventually loosens the steps.) In the photo above, you can see one of the water breaks that the volunteers had built the day before. It forms a kind of curved lip across the channel. The two sides are raised and sit flush to the sides of the channel, funneling the water towards the lower central opening and away from the soft earth. You can see it, but a larger flat stone has been sunk into the earth in front of the opening. This, as well as the gravel and small stones will protect the soil beneath the parts of the channel with the heaviest flow.
This was the section we got assigned to. The rocks on the left were ones we’d brought in, and on the right are steps that were likely placed here around the same time as the glutinous rice bridge was built (1918). The style of trail building popular in Taiwan at at that time was a central path of broad flat stones flanked by an outer line of smaller stones on each side. The outer stones on this section had become loose and disappeared, so we needed to replace them and add in a water break.
Teresa and a teammate removing earth to sink some of the stones in.
It was more complex than it seemed, and we had to keep referring to already-finished examples to try and figure out what we were meant to be doing. I think I will need to join several times before getting the hang of it!
Almost before I knew it, three hours had passed and we were being told to put down tools and break for lunch—steamed buns and banans supplemented with some flapjacks that I’d made a day or two before.
Half way through our hour-long break, we had an impromptu musical performance from a father and son duo who just happened to be walking past carrying their handmade bamboo instruments.
After lunch, we got back to it, and with some help from the professionals, our patch of trail gradually began to look better. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t lend itself to dramatic before and after photos. On second thoughts, that’s actually a good thing; in another few months or years, it’ll be hard to distinguish the new stones from the ones that have been there for a century.
In this photo you can see some of the patching up more clearly. On the left, the edge of the trail has been repaired, and the water channel on the right has a new baffle.
The most dramatic completed project of the day was this section right beside Shuilian Bridge. Recent heavy rains had caused the erosion to accelerate, and it was necessary to strengthen the land with a channel that would allow the water to make its way to the river below without causing damage to the bridge or surrounding land.
This is the water channel after it was finished. It’s hard to tell on a dry day, but with Taiwan’s weather conditions, this handiwork will need to withstand an awful lot of water when the plum rains come. Hopefully, these three days spent giving our sweat and time to the trail will help it survive another 100 years.
How can you get involved?
Follow: Follow TMI Trail on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with what they’re doing. This is where you’re likely to hear about any upcoming events.
Support: If you want to contribute financially, you can find the TMI Trail donations page here.
Subscribe: If you want to get in-depth (Chinese) updates, you can subscribe to the TMI Trail newsletter.
Read: To read a little more about some of the great projects TMI Trail has been involved in, you can head to their own website and/or read this article in Travel in Taiwan Magazine.
Taiwan Trails and Tales 