Qixing Mountain occupies the top spot among Taipei City’s peaks. Standing at 1,120 metres above sea level, it is the tallest of the bunch (although New Taipei has many that are higher), and I feel climbing its many, many steps should be a rite of passage for new Taipei residents. Since my first wide-eyed climb in foggy weather some 9 years ago, I have completed variations of this trip numerous times—I walked it as part of the Taipei Grand Hike and the Yangmingshan East-West Trail, I climbed it after sunset, and before dawn. But there was one variation that I hadn’t yet attempted: the Qixing Mountain Three-Way.
I’m not exactly sure when I first became aware of this particular way to “enjoy” this mountain, but I remember noticing that it had become popular a couple of years back. So popular in fact, that people had already begun trying to find ways to up the difficulty even further (case in point, the weirdo who decided to do it while carrying a YouBike… so many questions). The route name comes not from local hikers’ adventurous sexual proclivities (get that mind out of the gutter), but from the fact that there are three separate trails that converge on the summit of Qixing Mountain — the Miaopu Trail (which starts close to Yangmingshan Visitor Center, the Lengshuikeng Trail (which starts by the Lengshuikeng Visitor Centre and the Xiaoyoukeng Trail (which, well, you can guess). To complete the Qixing Mountain Three-way challenge, one must walk from each trailhead to the summit in a single day. The only possible reasons for this are a penchant for pointless, potentially masochistic endeavours or training for a tough walk.
I fall pretty firmly in the former camp (see also the Neihu Twin Hearts Trail and the MRT stamp challenge). So, seizing a free day before a seemingly endless deluge of work deadlines started to demand my attention, I grabbed my bag and set off to climb Taipei’s tallest mountain… three times in one day.
Distance: 12.5 km — In this instance, the distance is a very poor measure of how tired you’ll feel afterwards.
Time: 5-7 hours — I walked it in six hours with a steady pace and only short breaks (and stops to take photos), and trail runners have been known to complete it in under four hours.
Total ascent: A little over 1,200, so it’s as if you’ve climbed Qixing Mountain right from sea level and then some.
Difficulty (regular Taiwan hiker): 5/10 — For someone au fait with Taiwan’s hiking trails, Mount Qixing really doesn’t deserve to be called difficult. There are steps and it’s steep, but it’s straightforward to navigate. No, the true difficulty for this walk comes from the endurance required to push through despite the never ending steps.
Difficulty (new Taiwan hiker): 5-6/10 — For the same reasons as above, this walk doesn’t really deserve to be classified as truly challenging, even for people unfamiliar with hiking in Taiwan. Added to that is the fact that a couple of early exit points are baked into the route and it’s a pretty good option for those looking to test their limits in a safe way.
Food and water: I took about 0.7L in a reusable water bottle and filled up at the visitor centres. Similarly, for food, I took a sandwich from home but stocked up on salt candy and snacks at the visitor centre stores.
Shade: Patchy. Also, despite it being November and cloudy from about 9:30 onwards, I went home with a nice T-shirt sunburn.
Mobile network: There is clear mobile reception for the majority of the walk. The exception to this is the middle portion of Miaopu Trail, which seems to be in a black spot.
Enjoyment: Define enjoyment. The scenery (as you can see from the photos) is stupendous. I feel great about having completed this and would probably do it again if I needed to prepare for an upcoming trek, but there were definitely moments when I questioned what I was doing, and my calves were protesting about having to carry me down so many steps for days.
Other: I really wouldn’t advise attempting this in the summer (unless you’re doing it at night, but then you’d need to take all your water).
Bathroom facilities: There are toilets at all three trail heads, but none on the trail itself.
Route type: I guess technically it’s a there-and-back walk but a very odd, three-pointed one.
Permit: None needed
Jump to the bottom of this post for a trail map and GPX file.
7:58 — I began my walk from the bus stop just outside Yangmingshan National Park Tourist Information Centre. It was too early for the centre to be open, but I made use of the toilet before heading up the path to the start of the Miaopu Trail. Despite the great weather, there was only one other couple embarking on a climb at the same time as me (it was a Friday, but I think that would be a very different matter if I went on a weekend).
8:03 — After passing Yangmingshan Scout Centre, I found myself at the start of my first ascent to Qixing Mountain. Here, the trail turns right and veers away from the much gentle Qixing Mountian Round-Mountain Trail.
It was still early enough for sunbeams to be creeping slantwise through the leaves.
Since this trail starts lower than the other three, it has the densest and most varied tree cover. And if you look to the right of the main trail, you’ll notice a secondary path beaten through the undergrowth.
I would not recommend walking this way. For a start, it’s much more slippery and harder to navigate (there are points where the trail becomes near-invisible). it’s also not good practise to go trampling over root systems where there is a perfectly serviceable trail nearby.
A tree lizard observing me in a manner that my dad described as “benevolent” when I shared the photo with my family WhatsApp group.
8:34 — After about half an hour of climbing, I reached the first of three junctions before the peak. The junction was guarded by a squirrel, who hopped impatiently from bench to bench as I passed her and turned left to continue uphill. Five minutes later, I passed straight on through the second junction. This one has a sheltered seating area that was occupied by a backpack (its owner having taken five steps off the trail into the greenery where he was letting forth long, strong fountain of pee — he never knew I had passed him).
Spotting boots left tidily beside the trail, I anticipated finding a barefooted elder at some point, and sure enough, I met one making his way carefully and deliberately down the path towards me.
Yangmingshan’s weather is often at its best in the early morning, and this occasion was no exception to that rule — turning back to pant breathlessly due to the steep incline admire the view, I was able to spot Snow Mountain’s main peak (雪山主峰) towering above the city — that’s over 90 kilometres away.
As it draws closer to the summit, the trailside scenery begins to change. Bamboo begins to dominate the greenery, while the scattering of taller trees serve as cloud catches, funnelling water down to the understory, where lush ferns and mosses flourish.
9:10 — A little further up, arrow bamboo finally wins out — it’s the only plant capable of withstanding the strong winds that often whip around Qixing Mountain’s upper slopes.
The third junction comes 200-300 metres before the peak. Take a left here and continue up (later I came back to take the trail on the right heading for the east peak).
On the last little stretch before the summit, I found myself climbing fully into the clouds.
9:15 — The first (and longest, and steepest) climb took an hour and a quarter to complete.
The clearing at the top was the emptiest I saw it all day. There were about 6-8 people and a nearly equal number of bamboo partridges. Usually shy birds, the ones that live on this trail have become so inured to the presence of hikers that they will even hop up on the benches beside you. (Their behaviour seems to be primarily driven by the desire for food. It’s clear some hikers must feed them, but I’m sure it goes without saying that they shouldn’t. For a start, it is illegal, and it’s also not good to encourage dependency on humans.)
9:31 — After a handful of nuts and dried fruit (that the bamboo partridges definitely would have stolen from me if they had the hearts of seagulls), I set of to start my first descent. Just as I was leaving the summit clearing, the couple who had started the walk at the same time as me appeared and asked if I was already on my way down. I told them I was, but that I was just one climb into an attempt on the triple challenge and they wished me luck.
After retracing my steps to the previous junction, I took the left trail signposted as going towards the east peak.
The top was, if anything, even foggier than its slightly taller neighbour and I passed through without stopping.
The fog persisted for much of the descent, although the lower I went, the thinner it became.
After passing through a dense patch of trees, I came across a man standing at a turn in the trail and as I approached, he called up to me, “Do you want to see a snake?” Naturally, my answer was that yes, I did want so see a snake. (The answer to that question is always yes.) And so I made my way lightly down until I was able to see the snake in question. It turned out to be a big-eyed ratsnake (Ptyas dhumnades). Nicknamed the mountain-crossing blade (過山刀) in Chinese on account of their tendency to streak off lightning-fast when startled, these non-venomous beauties are one of the more commonly seen species in Taiwan, and are definitely the species I see most frequently in the day time.
After descending far enough, the clouds eventually thinned out enough for me to see the city again.
Looking southish over the trimmed grassy area of Qixing Park.
Shortly after the red and white pylon of the National Education Radio facility came into view, there were a couple more junctions. Heading left at the first brings you onto the radio facility’s access track, then 100 metres later, you need to take a right and follow the trail heading towards the two-storey pagoda.
In mid-November, the trail should have been ablaze with swaying silvergrass, but torrential rain the week prior had dampened the nascent buds and the whole place looked a bit sorry for itself.
10:10 — Upon reaching the visitor centre, I filled up my water bottle, then headed round the back to use the toilets and grab a pack of salt candy from the store. I’d forgotten to take any with me and had not expected to be getting quite so hot and sweaty in November.
10:20 — Ten minutes after arriving, I felt ready to set off again… although just a few steps in, I was questioning my readiness. For some of the climb, the clouds lifted to offer great views of the silvergrass slopes. It’s such a shame they weren’t in full bloom because it would have looked magnificent in this light.
By this point, the trails were staring to feel a lot busier, although given that it was a weekday, the majority of the hikers I passed belonged to the silver-haired demographic.
I’m not sure if it is better or worse to be climbing the trail immediately after having descended it. You can mentally prepare yourself because you know what’s coming, but on the other hand, knowing what’s coming is not always a good thing. Perhaps I’m looking at this all wrong. Perhaps I should aspire to achieve a kind of hiker’s zen state: there’s no good or bad, there just is.
Either way, as I retraced my steps up into the clouds, I began to encounter some of the hikers I’d met earlier when we were both heading in the opposite direction. It was clear some of them were quite concerned that I’d somehow gotten lost and accidentally ended up going back the wrong way.
11:13 — The second ascent took around 50 minutes. The cloud cover was much thicker this time around and all of the partridges had been chased away by the influx of hikers.
This time, I paused a little longer to eat the sandwich I’d brought with me before heading down third trail toward Xiaoyoukeng. This route’s most unique element is the sulphur-belching fumaroles that can be seen (and smelled) right beside the steps.
Just as the path begins to level out, there’s a small stream that flows out from a dark cavern. When the flow is a little lower, the water is noticeably warm, but on this occasion, the earlier heavy rains must have tempered the hot spring heat.
11:58 — As at Lengshuikeng, I paused to make use of the bathroom and store facilities — this time ducking inside to get a SOYJOY bar (an ironic name given that their cardboardesque qualities remove most of the joy of consumption, but the lemon and white chocolate one is at least somewhat palatable).
12:11 — I didn’t want to linger so long that I cooled down too much, so after topping up my water again, I set off once more to begin my final ascent of the day.
By this time, a light drizzle had started to fall, so I took few photos as I retraced my steps through the bamboo, past the fumaroles and up the steep stone steps to the top.
13:00 — The third climb took almost exactly the same amount of time as the second, despite being shorter and marginally less steep. I’ll attribute some of that to my legs being tireder, but I did also stop for quite a while to photograph beetles. (Their little yellow deely boppers were too cute.)
Since I wasn’t hungry and the number of hikers had reached supermarket-before-a-typhoon levels of crowdedness, I didn’t stop for long before setting off to walk back down the Miaopu Trail.
After walking all three on the same day, I can safely say that this route is the least travelled by quite a large margin. There were far fewer people attempting the climb from this direction (and that was no bad thing, I was peopled out by this point).
14:09 — By the time I made it back to the carpark, my legs were very happy not to be encountering yet more steps, and the final little surprise of the day was that someone with a similar scooter to mine had chosen to park next to me despite having a huge empty lot to choose from. I thought they looked rather cute together.
How to get to Qixing Mountain
Google Maps address: There are three trailheads involved in this walk. I started and finished at Miaopu Trailhead but you could also chose to start from Lengshuikeng or Xiaoyoukeng.
GPS location:
- Miaopu Trailhead — N25 09.450 E121 32.815
- Lengshuikeng Trailhead — N25 9.950 E121 33.790
- Xiaoyoukeng Trailhead — N25 10.602 E121 32.820
Public transport: There are buses from all over Taipei to
Yangmingshan, but one that is convenient for many central locations is the 1717 service that runs from NTU Hospital MRT station, via Jiantan to Yangmingshan National Park Management Office.
Further reading: I had a look at this trail report before setting off.
Nearby trails: There are soooooo many trails in Yangmingshan National Park. So many, in fact, that I have a whole page dedicated to them.
Qixing Mountain Three In, Three Out Trail Map
GPX file available here on Outdoor Active. (Account needed, but the free one works just fine.)
Taiwan Trails and Tales 