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A small adventure in the big Taiwanese mountains.

You know how people say that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity? When I wanted to see some of Taiwan's spectacular mountains, luck was on my side, despite being unprepared. When planning, my wishes were dictated by my limitations. The place should...

• Be high enough so that I wouldn't have to climb over a kilometer if I wanted to reach some summit nearby. The closest I get to mountaineering practice in Belgium is scaling a couple of bell towers per year, which simply doesn't cut it.
• Offer hospitality services. I came to Taiwan primarily for conferencing and didn't lug an assortment of outdoor gear.
• Be reasonably accessible by public transportation. I get that often, incredible mountains are remote, but I didn't sort an international DL and hoped to score something anyway.

There weren't many places that ticked all of these boxes, but one stood out: Alishan National Scenic Area. I went that way, and it turned out I couldn't ask for anything better.

But let's not skip ahead. The reason for Alishan's accessibility is rooted in its interesting history: When Taiwan became an annexed territory of Imperial Japan at the end of the 19th century, the Japanese set out to survey Taiwan's high mountains and discovered Alishan boasting extensive cypress forests. With cypress being a valued commodity, they built a railway, which climbs more than 2,000 meters in elevation from Chiayi City to Alishan, to facilitate lumber extraction. Soon, though, tourists also began to use the railway, due to Alishan's proximity to the tallest mountain in the entire Empire of Japan at the time.

The logging business continued until the middle of the second half of the 20th century, when the forest was depleted. From then onwards, tourism became the primary source of the local economy, and accessibility continued to grow as a new highway connected Alishan to the central part of the island. That was my ticket in, as I was coming from Sun Moon Lake.

While perhaps not as enchanting as climbing aboard the train, the bus journey proved quite an experience as well, because the driver knew the road by heart. Or at least, he drove as if he did. Left-Right-Left-Right... Overtake!?! I reached for a seatbelt, but it was jammed and of no use. At that moment, the Beatles' lyrics came to mind: "Let it be, let it be..." Okay then, I tried, and all was well; we reached the Alishan station by lunchtime.

The station is at around 2200 meters above sea level, so for once, it didn't feel too hot. What I also found cool was that the entrance fee to the nature reserve was lower for those who used public transit as an alternative to a car. Moreover, the area has separate vehicular and pedestrian roads, which made walking there nicer over shared paths. Still, I soon left deeper into the forest, further away from the buildings and parking lots.

The trails were well-made, consisting of either boardwalks or stone tiles embedded in the landscape. Although it may not look too wild-ish, it makes the trails more sustainable to handle large crowds. However, as you can see in the photo above, the crowds just weren't there when I was. Sure, I met small groups of other tourists, but it was totally incomparable to my experience at, say, the Yellow Mountain or the Grand Canyon, where if I weren't tall, I wouldn't see much beyond the folks around me. Here, the lack of people left room for others: besides pretty birds, I also spotted a few cute monkeys.

Next to the trails were many massive stumps of the old trees. They were left there to keep the soil from extensive erosion, and once the roots rotted out, they provided better irrigation for the new trees.

Some new trees began to grow inside the old stumps, creating an interesting merger of different generations. Another thing to note about the trails was the stairs. A lot of them!

After the trail took me around some of the scenic places the park has to offer, it was still too early for me to check into my hotel, so I looked at my map for where to hike next.

I found that the tallest mountain of the Alishan range, Datashan, 'Big Tower Mountain' in English, is less than four kilometers away. Well then, let's go! The trail first followed the narrow-gauge railway and revealed more impressive stumps. It got me thinking about how the forest must have looked before the exploitation began.

Over the last two kilometers, the trail leaves the rails and gains approximately 300 meters in elevation. That does not sound bad, but Datashan has a height of 2,663m (almost the same as the tallest mountain in the Tatras range), while my home is at around 30m. It's safe to say I felt the elevation; my lungs had to work overtime. Other than the meters, I also gained the impression that I ain't going to score any extensive vistas from this summit today. I climbed straight into a cloud.

I haven't met anyone else ascending, only a few groups returning down from the mountain. At one point, they stopped coming too, and I had the mountain all for myself since then. I didn't complain, but I also reflected on what it might tell if I am the only one still going up. "How far is the evening?" I checked my watch. "Not too far..." Still, I assessed that I should be able to get up and down before sunset, and I found a piece of a branch on the ground that I used as a walking stick. It helped me conquer more stairs, and after I passed one of the highest weather stations in Taiwan, I reached the top.

The summit, as expected, was immersed in clouds. It was like around Sun Moon Lake, where mornings were clear, but every afternoon brought some haze or clouds. Still, I wasn't disappointed. There's something magically beautiful about mountains, even in little visibility. And from time to time, the rolling clouds had a little hole, enough to reveal some of the landscape that was below me.

At the top, there was a small box with a few props for tourists to take photos with, including a laser-cut metal sign with the elevation:

I am usually not big on photo props, but I saw it as a nice gesture by the park management, and found it impressive that they were just there. As I returned the one I used, I sighed that in most places in the West, something like this would have to be chained. And even then, it would probably be full of stickers and tags in no time. I don't follow the need to mark every place wherever one enters, so I enjoyed having the summit clean. With nobody around, I took my time, and when I had enough of the clouds theater, I started my descent. It still did not feature distant views, but I found it plenty scenic anyway.

As I approached my hotel, it felt fairly adventurous, too, because before coming here, two people, independent of each other, had told me that the accommodation in Alishan is either ridiculously expensive or of very poor quality. Hmm, mine was not too expensive...

At check-in, I indeed discovered a feature of the hotel that some people could see as a drawback: the hotel doesn't turn on the heating unless it is 10 degrees Celsius or less. However, I had no problem with it; my room had a comfy bed with a decent duvet, the shower was well hot, and above all, the room had a balcony with an excellent view. What a bargain! That balcony came in very handy, as I checked in just before sunset.

Alishan is famous for its views of a sea of clouds. Often, the valleys around are in inversion, while the peaks are clear. What I got on this evening was a thick cloud blanket below, but also some clouds above me. It made for quite a show.

By this time, I had scaled more elevation meters than the tallest point in Belgium, so I was happy to find a place selling noodles nearby. And when I returned to my room, the balcony show continued. Not that I checked, but I am pretty confident it was way better than anything the TV inside the room could offer.

I woke up early the following morning. Not from jetlag this time, but because I wanted to see the sunrise. To do so, I headed back to the Alishan Station for the forest railway, which climbs near the top of another peak here, Zhushan (2,490m). As it is closer and smaller than Datashan, it wouldn't be a problem to walk there, but since the railway is so famous (and I might be a bit nerdy when it comes to trains), I wanted to experience it. And I am glad I did.

While my train still had a few free spaces, others were on the way, so it was clear that the sunrise is THE thing to see in Alishan for most people who come here. The people on the train were a diverse group: some wore flip-flops, while others carried tactical gear as if the train went to K2's base camp. Just outside the station is a large observation platform, which, as expected, was pretty packed. So I ended up walking a bit further on Mount Ogasawara (2,488m) to another observation deck, Xiaoliyuanshan Lookout.

Of course, I wasn't alone with this idea, but the crowd was much smaller, and I could enjoy the view with more than enough personal space. It's no wonder that Alishan is popular for sunrises, as from here, one can get a view of Yushan, the tallest mountain in Taiwan (3,952m), separated from the observer by a deep valley. Even though the valley was not shrouded in a sea of clouds when I visited, it was still a stunning sight (as featured at the top of this article).

All was terrific, but then, someone decided to fly a drone — just what the peaceful morning needed: a soundtrack of a weed eater hovering above our heads. Until there are silent drones, I see those who fly them for personal use next to a crowd of strangers as being of the same kind as those who blast deafening music while driving through downtown with windows down, or use a loudspeaker inside a busy train. I appreciated that places around Sun Moon Lake had signs prohibiting this behavior. Here, there were no signs, so a moment after the first drone took off, another was in the air. Ugh, weed eater in stereo! I walked away, and thankfully, the area offered me trails to cherish the rising sun scenery in silence.

By the time I returned to the train station near Zhushan, most people had already left.

It was only around 8 in the morning, and yet, there were no signs of crowds anymore. With that, I went to see Zhushan, which gave a surreal feeling: I was there alone!

Tja, okay then! I had a picnic breakfast and admired Datashan completely free of clouds:

And also the other views.

My time in the mountains was nearing its end, and not knowing when I would get to see them again, I wasn't in a rush to leave.

I then took a leisurely walk down Zhushan to pick up my stuff from the hotel, revisited some nice places from yesterday, and saw some new ones.

Along the way, I saw a few dry riverbeds and thought about how different this place must look during the wet season. Later, I learned that the local average rainfall in August is over 800mm (32in). That would give a totally different impression of the place than I got. While I can imagine that I'd like both, I must say I was delighted with the experience I got.

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