With another 
Fulbright friend, I visited Alishan National Park for the first time. The fog-outlined alpine trees outside our lodge kept reminding me of ski trips, as did being sweaty underneath and slightly damp above multiple layers. With the altitude, the temperature dropped to the 40s at night, the coldest weather I’ve encountered in Taiwan yet. I loved the most immersive forest feel of Alishan, complete with fresh mountain air, that other hikes right around Taipei seemed to lack. We hiked every single trail in the park, including the peak famous for the sunrises above the sea of clouds. We decided we could hike the whole trail before sunrise, unlike most of the Taiwanese people who smartly take the shuttle...we ended up racing up the trail in order to arrive actually by sunrise. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see anything anyways except white clouds getting brighter white. Afterwards, we had breakfast and local tea at a teahouse by the summit. We did two other big summits that day including one in which we found ourselves once again racing up because we were in a time crunch. We were literally running down the mountain to catch the last bus to Sun Moon Lake.
Fulbright friend, I visited Alishan National Park for the first time. The fog-outlined alpine trees outside our lodge kept reminding me of ski trips, as did being sweaty underneath and slightly damp above multiple layers. With the altitude, the temperature dropped to the 40s at night, the coldest weather I’ve encountered in Taiwan yet. I loved the most immersive forest feel of Alishan, complete with fresh mountain air, that other hikes right around Taipei seemed to lack. We hiked every single trail in the park, including the peak famous for the sunrises above the sea of clouds. We decided we could hike the whole trail before sunrise, unlike most of the Taiwanese people who smartly take the shuttle...we ended up racing up the trail in order to arrive actually by sunrise. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see anything anyways except white clouds getting brighter white. Afterwards, we had breakfast and local tea at a teahouse by the summit. We did two other big summits that day including one in which we found ourselves once again racing up because we were in a time crunch. We were literally running down the mountain to catch the last bus to Sun Moon Lake.
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| Sunrise summit |
With very sore legs, we woke up for sunrise over Sun Moon Lake prior to a bike ride around it. The 環潭 around-the-lake cycle has been named one of the top five greatest routes in the world. It truly was so spectacular, it could make you crash your bike. There were a couple steep climbs but each rewarded with mountain-top temples. The rest of the route was right along the lakeside, often on a special cycling path built up right above the water. When renting the bikes, we first turned down an offer to rent electric bikes to which the man replied that foreigners always want to peddle themselves.
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