The content on this website is published in English. I cannot guarantee the quality of the translated text generated by the plugin of this website. The machine-translated “names” and “terminology” are often inconsistent and/or incorrect. If it looks confusing, please switch back to the English version.
Disclaimer: Information such as the locations or the trails shown on the maps of this website might be inaccurate, misleading or out-of-date. They are only the simple illustration for the ranges of the hiking trails or the points of interest. Please prepare your own navigation device, apps, topo maps, and GPX files for hiking.
About North Section 2 and my embarrassing lesson
The Difficulty Rating: ★★★★⯪4.5
North Section 2, Central Mountain Range (北二段) is a difficult hiking trail to the south of North Section 1 (北一段, also called Nanhu-Zhongyangjian 南湖中央尖) in Taroko National Park.
Relative to the popular North Section 1, the trail of North Sections 2 seemed less maintained and more susceptible to severe weather. Interestingly, like North Section 1 this trail is a circuit as well. Hikers have the option to go clockwise or counter-wise after the trail junction at 17.5 K on 730 Forest Road.
This trail is very well-known for its exposed and precipitous terrain which is mainly located on the ridge between Lingmingshan (鈴鳴山) and Ganshefeng (甘薯峰). Some locations along the trail have pretty ominous names such as Wumingshan (無明山), meaning “the mountain of no tomorrow” or “dimmed mountain”; Guimenguanfeng (鬼門關峰) literally means the peak of “the gate of the underworld”. I am not sure why they are named like this but probably just to describe how formidable they look.
I had this hike in 2011, the year of frequent hiking. The experience from the sheer ridge did not impress me too much. But an embarrassing moment during the last night of the hike did.
I left my tent and stayed in the bush only 20 meters away to relieve myself. While I stood up again, I could not figure out the way back to my tent because of my pathetic sense of direction. The bamboos around me was so dense that no matter where my headlamp pointed to I could only see the dazzling reflection from the plants. I started yelling loudly until someone was woken up, who guided me back to the tent with his headlamp.
Since this lesson, I always brought a navigation device with me regardless how close I was to the tent, a hut, or the track.
