Finally we arrived Yilan after 4 hours drive from Hsinchu and our first destination is the old forest railway.

Parking space is very close to this place, although it wasn't very obvious that we arrived in the right place. In high mountains we didn't have signal... Although we always follow people! There were like 2-3 buses and a few cars and suddenly a lot of people went deep into the forest.





Jianqing Huaigu Trail (見晴懷古步道) is build on part of the old logging railway - Jiancing Line. This used to be major logging area during Japanese occupation.

Total length of the trail is 2.35km. The trail was destroyed by typhoon in 2013, now only 0.9km is accessible to visitors.











The trail is located in Taipingshan National Forest Recreation Area in Yilan. Mountain high ranges 500 to 2000 m above sea level, with 12000 hectares of area. You need a permit to enter which you can easily get in inspection post by presenting your ID card or passport. The entrance fee is 150NTD for an adult person.



See also: Guishan Island













Taipingshan National Forest Recreation Area is located in Yilan in two townships: Datong and Nanao. This place used to be known as Taipingshan Forest Farm. The forest recreation area was established in 1989 and covers an area of 12,631 hectares. During the logging period Taipingshan was already known as one of twelve scenic spots in Taiwan due to it's natural landscapes as sea of clouds and sunrise.





The Taipingshan forest farm was developed in 1924. The technology used at that time was Putian-style ropeway and it wasn't necessary to carry out the long and inefficient climb of the mountain railway. It was the first place to use this technology, later it was also used in other forest farms.

Use of ropeways improve the efficient of transporting materials. It also restricted the passenger transportation on this route. After the complete of logging it was difficult to transform it into sightseeing railway.











The railway in high mountains is pretty amazing. It would also be a little scary if there was no people around. The mist cover everything and the ground is so slippery... It's really high mountains and sometimes I was afraid to walk, but I really wanted to see as much as possible.