Guguan’s Seven Heroes are a series of mid-elevation peaks in Taichung’s mountainous Heping District and with this peak, Mount Baimao, finally under my belt, I can now say I have walked all seven of them. Like the other peaks in the series, this one offers a mostly forested walk, but when the views come, they are grand.

Distance: 9.2 kilometres — A fair chunk of this (perhaps even half) is undertaken on the track leading to the trailhead, while the rest is true trail. Can you drive up to the trailhead? Technically, yes. Should you attempt it? Probably not. The road is so narrow that even a scooter might struggle to squeeze past a car and there are only a handful of parking spaces.

Time: 5-7 hours — It took us a little under 6 hours to complete, including a thirty-minute break at the top.

Total ascent: Around 950 metres to a high point of 1,522 metres.

Difficulty (regular Taiwan hiker): 5/10 — This is a moderately challenging walk for someone used to Taiwan’s trails. There’s a reasonable amount of elevation gain, there’s some scrambling, and there’s some slipperiness. Neither of us suffered sore muscles the next day.

Difficulty (new Taiwan hiker): 7/10 — For someone new to hiking in Taiwan, this should be a slightly challenging walk for the reasons mentioned above. It is neither the easiest nor the hardest of the Seven Heroes. If you’re looking for a starter hike, I’d suggest trying Mount Dongmao first.

Risks and dangers: This is quite a rocky trail and although the rocks themselves aren’t slippery, the mud and tree roots are. You need to pay attention to where you’re putting your feet.

Food and water: I took 0.8L and drank all of it on a warm February day. Foodwise, we had some bread and fruit and chocolate and that was ample. You should arrive at the trailhead prepared. There is a little cafe shack near the bus stop, but I would not rely on it to be open when you need it.

Shade: This trail is well shaded for all but a short stretch near the top.

Mobile network: I had reception for most of the walk (with Taiwan Mobile).

Enjoyment: The highlight of this walk is the dramatically exposed section of steps near the summit, but there’s a lot more to enjoy than that. The forest itself is lovely, whether misty or sunny, and you stand a good chance of seeing some animals. We saw several troops of monkeys and soooo many Swinho pheasants.

Other: A hiking stick or two is a good idea for this trail, especially on the descent, because it can help shield your knees from the worst of the impact and provide an extra point of contact where there’s nothing to grab onto.

Bathroom facilities: There are no bathroom facilities anywhere along this route. If you’re driving, the closest toilets are at Guguan Daodao Academy, which is just 5 minutes away by car.

Route type: There and back (there is a route option, but I can’t speak to the difficulty of that).

Permit: None needed.

Jump to the bottom of this post for a trail map and GPX file.

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We parked up on the side of the main road next to where Bailu Suspension Bridge crosses Dajia River and got ourselves ready for the climb.

Starting from this bridge adds about 2.5 kilometres and an hour’s extra walking in each direction, but unless you’re on a scooter, it’s not really worth attempting to drive up the track. There are only a handful of spaces and the top and passing places are so few and far between that you’d be a bit buggered if you met someone driving in the opposite direction.

Once over the bridge, we turned left and headed against the flow of an irrigation canal until we found the start of a paved shortcut. A metal post on one of the canal’s flow gates was covered in all of these oscillated shield bugs.

The shortcut is a roughly surfaced, zigzagging trail that warms you up for the steep climb that’s to come. Then, when you rejoin the track, turn left onto it and continue uphill. There was a noisy guard dog in the yard of the property by the junction but it was chained up.

The next section of track was steep and not particularly memorable, but we did encounter our first troop of monkeys (we saw three or four groups in total). They were sitting high up in the branches of some type of fig tree, plucking the ripe fruits off the branches and throwing down the bits they didn’t want to eat.

There are two junctions along the way. In both cases, we took the left-hand fork. (This is the second junction and it’s possible for you to do a looped version of this trail that would come back via the track on the right. I had hoped to give it a go, but we arrived too late.)

It took us exactly one hour to reach the true trailhead and although I was kind of hoping to have a quick breather, Teresa made the executive decision to continue full steam ahead when an uncle who’d been sat with his music blaring came over, waving his phone at us and making a big deal about my foreignness. (I have become less prickly about this over the years, because it may be annoying, but it can also be a bit funny. However, for Teresa, the reverse is true and she’s gone from finding it amusing to having zero patience for anyone who asks.) He certainly wasn’t able to read the room because after Teresa said she would rather not have any photographs taken, he told us he would just take photos of our backs instead. My man then proceeded to video us until we had been swallowed up by the trees, at which point he was kind enough to shout up and let us know he’d finished.

Thankfully, once we were on the trail, the beauty of the forest soon helped us forget the irritation of earlier. We saw a male Swinhoe’s pheasant with a small harem of females, and another troop of monkeys frolicking among the bamboo.

The walking was tiring. (Check the elevation profile below and you’ll see that it was essentially just steep uphill sections followed by slightly less steep uphill sections.) Roots, fixed ropes and rocks provided hand- and foot-holds, and concentration was required to avoid slipping or tripping. That said, there’s nothing too challenging about it.

There are trail markers every 500 metres once you get on the main trail, and somewhere between the 0.5 and 1 kilometre markers is a clearing with benches near Mount Baimao’s northern peak. (The peak itself is hidden a little way into the forest.)

A short distance further, we came upon the first of the walk’s two views. The prominent form of Mount Dongmao is clearly visible just across the way, with the massive form of Guguan Daodao Academy (玉敕封神台谷關大道院) occupying a sizeable chunk of land at its foot.

Bug fluffery of some description.

Shortly after the 1.5-kilometre point, there was a jump in sustained steepness and we found ourselves pausing to catch our breath.

This slightly flatter section just before the summit was a welcome break.

This very last little bit before the summit is undoubtedly the most photographed section of the whole journey. After climbing through tall forests for 99% of the walk, suddenly we found ourselves scrambling up an exposed rocky ridge with steep drops to either side (there is sturdy fencing to make sure everyone stays safe). From up here, we could see pretty much the whole way up Dajia River and into the hot spring town of Guguan.

We passed a family of three heading down just as we were nearing the top, but we had the whole summit to ourselves. According to a thermometer attached to the pavilion, it was 15°C at the top — significantly cooler than it had been when we started — and we had to layer up to avoid freezing while we had our congratulatory snacks.

Once the bread had all gone, we began retracing our steps. (The alternative route down loops back from the far end of the summit clearing, but with just over 3 hours left of daylight, I didn’t fancy attempting it, given that it’s as well-travelled as the main route).

I wish I could say that we had an uneventful descent, but while that is mostly true, Teresa also suffered a pretty nasty fall, tumbling at one of the few sections where there were neither ropes nor trees to grab onto. She fell literally head over heels down a steep drop, and was only narrowly avoided getting a concussion because her bag and shoulder hit the ground a little before her head hit a rock. It was terrifying to witness and made us question whether we ought to wear our helmets more often. (Previously, we’ve only worn them when rocks from above are more likely to fall on us, but perhaps us falling on rocks is a bigger hazard.) We took a while to let the adrenaline fade, and after an all-over assessment, it was determined that she’d bounced and gotten away with nothing but a couple of sore spots, but she was lucky. It could easily have been so much worse.

I would like to say it was a relief to come off the trail and start walking down the track, but alas, no. The steep gradient made walking down about as tiring as walking up had been. The one redeeming point was that we must have coincided our return with dinner time for the pheasants because we saw so many of them.

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How to get to Mount Baimao

Google Maps address: Parking is available on the side of the road next to Bailu Suspension Bridge. Those travelling by scooter can consider driving up to the trailhead, but the road isn’t great and I wouldn’t advise driving up on weekends or holidays.

GPS location: N24 10.525 E120 54.570

Public transport:

• Getting there – The easiest way is to start from Taichung, hop on the 850 (stops at the main station’s east exit, Taichung Home Economics and Commercial High School and a few more spots along Minquan Road, but you’re better off waiting at an earlier stop because it fills up). If you prefer a short journey and don’t mind transferring services, you can start at Fengyuan Transfer Station. There are quite a lot of service variations that will take you to Bailu Suspension Bridge, so you’re best off plugging the destination into Google and seeing which will arrive first.
• Getting back — It’s pretty much the same in reverse, but unless you need to head back to Taichung City, I’d advise you to head to Fengyuan by bus and then catch an onward train to wherever you need to be because the road traffic is usually worse in the afternoon.

Nearby trails: You’ve got the rest of the Guguan Seven Heroes to explore.

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Mount Baimao Trail Map

GPX file available here on Outdoor Active. (Account needed, but the free one works just fine.)

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