Hiking in Southern Taiwan: The Mountains Nobody Writes About

Search “hiking in Taiwan” and you’ll get Yushan, Elephant Mountain, and the same dozen Taipei day-trips, written by people who flew in for a week. This page isn’t that. I live down south, I’ve hiked these mountains solo for over a decade, and most of the trails I write about have exactly zero other people on them – sometimes because they’re obscure little peaks, sometimes because there’s no trail at all and I had to make one. If that sounds like your kind of misery, you’re in the right place.

So consider this the front door. Below is what hiking down here is actually like, the practical stuff that might keep you out of trouble, and then a pile of links to the real trip reports – sorted so you can actually find them.

What hiking in southern Taiwan is actually like

The north gets the famous peaks and the crowds. The south – Pingtung, Kaohsiung, the bits of Taitung nobody drives to – gets heat, humidity that’ll soak your shirt in minutes (at least for me), jungle that grows back over a trail in a single season, and a whole lot of history hiding in the undergrowth. Abandoned aboriginal villages. Japanese-era police roads. Farmer tracks washed out by any number of typhoons over the years…and never touched since.

A lot of what I do isn’t really “hiking” in the postcard sense. It’s finding a suspicious-looking line on Google Earth (maybe it’s an old road?), talking myself into it (there’s not much talking; I’m a fool), and bushwhacking out there to see what it is. Half the fun is not knowing.

The practical stuff (read this before you go)

Permits

Most of the trails I hike down south are free and need no permit – they’re not inside the big national parks. The high-mountain stuff (Yushan, Xueshan and friends) needs a park-entry permit plus a police permit, both applied for online, and those are a different animal from what’s on this page. If a hike here needs a permit, I’m probably not interested.

Seasons & weather

Roughly speaking: autumn and winter (Nov–Mar) are the good window down south – drier, cooler, less likely to cook you. Summer is brutal heat plus afternoon storms plus typhoon season, and typhoons don’t just rain on you, they rearrange the mountains. Trails and roads I’ve hiked have been wiped out between visits. Always check recent conditions; a route someone walked last year might not exist now.

Things that bite, sting, and snort

Snakes (including a few you don’t want to step on), wild boar, hornets, and the occasional snare or leg-hold traps left by hunters all await you. But none of it should stop you – I’ve had boar crash off down the mountain three meters away; I’ve been bitten by too many wasps and hornets to count; I’ve been caught in traps (for 45 minutes one time!); I’ve bloodied myself in some embarrassing ways; I’ve gotten a rash from touching god knows what that lasted nearly two months…and I lived to tell boring stories about it all.

Water

Carry more than you think. On longer routes there may be no reliable source, and I’ve badly misjudged this before – running dry near the end of a hike is its own special kind of education. And definitely don’t forget your water filter. It’s a must.

Getting to the trailhead

This is the part the guidebooks skip. A lot of these trailheads are at the end of busted mountain roads with no bus, no parking lot, and no signage. I ride my dual-sport motorcycle in as far as the dirt trail lets me, then walk – it’s half the reason I can reach this stuff at all. If you drive a car or regular motorcycle/scooter be sure to read the access notes in each post carefully if I’ve included them, because “the road ends here” is a sentence I write a lot.

Navigation

Download the GPX track before you go and don’t rely on signage that may not exist. For exploratory routes I plan the line in advance and still expect to be wrong about half of it. Offline maps, a charged phone, and – if you’re going properly remote and solo like I do – think hard about an emergency communication plan. (I ended up importing a satellite phone into Taiwan for exactly this.)

Where to start: the hikes, sorted

I’ve got 100+ of these. Here are the ones worth starting with, grouped by what you’re in the mood for. Every link goes to a full write-up with photos and a GPX track.

Xiao Bai Yue & named peaks (the “real” trails)

If you want an actual marked path to a summit with a view, start here. These are the closest thing to a normal hike I offer.

• PengJiShan 棚集山 – a Xiao Bai Yue peak with a side of abandoned village
• The QiYueZongZou 旗月縱走 ridge traverse – a long, fun, jagged ridge
• ShiKeJianShan 石可見山 – GREAT views (when the fog cooperates)
• ShiMenShan 石門山 in Mudan – short, sharp little leg-burner
• FanLiShan 蕃里山 – an easy, gradual one for a lazy day
• XueYeGenShan 鱈葉根山 – challenging in spots, but a real trail the whole way. My kind of jungle slog.
• BaCengBaMoShan 巴層巴墨山 – only 937m but a 360° summit; you can see the ocean on both sides of the island if you’re lucky. Steep the whole way, and one of the few I’ll flat-out recommend.
• BaiBinShan & ZhenLiShan NE Peak 白賓山, 真笠山東北峰 – an easy two-peak ridge, friendly for most anyone; the NE peak has the view and a covered spot to eat.
• CaoBuHouShan & BaShiMoShan 草埔後山, 巴士墨山 – more ride than hike; I only went because it was the one dry spot that day. A fanged muntjac and a couple sketchy landslides made it memorable.
• BeiHuLuShan 北湖呂山 – my “perfect peak day”: great weather, no rush, and yes, I hauled a chair up there.

Exploratory & make-your-own routes

This is the stuff I’m actually known for: routes I planned off a map and a hunch, often with no trail at all. Fair warning – don’t follow my exact line up. Read the post, then take the sane way.

• WeiLiaoShan North Peak 尾寮山北峰 – a route I made up myself. You’re welcome / I’m sorry.
• HuYaLuoShan East 戶亞羅山東 – barely any info existed, so I went and made some
• DeDeShan 德德山 & JingDaShan 京大山 – quick peak plus an exploratory ridge
• WoDanShan East Peak 我丹山東峰 – odd little peak with a few surprises
• BeiHuLuShan 北湖呂山 – Easy Alternate Route – This was so simple I could probably do it a second time with my eyes closed. 😉
• BeiHuLuShan 北湖呂山 – Harder, Steeper Alternative Route – not one for the faint of heart. It’s steep, what ropes you can find are buried and old, and no views for the actual hike. Basically, my kind of hike!

Abandoned villages & what the mountains used to hold

Down here the history is right off the trail if you know where to look – Paiwan villages where residents were forced to leave, structures slowly being reclaimed by nature.

• Tjuqemadris – an abandoned Paiwan village near a waterfall group (this is the snare-trap hike)
• Neiwen Mountain & Tjakuvukuvulj Village – chasing down why a mountain “moved” on the maps
• An abandoned Forestry Bureau building – spotted on Google Earth, lost since Morakot
• Abandoned mountain roads off the Shaxi Forest Road 沙溪林道 – a washed-out loop I couldn’t resist

Historic & Japanese-era trails

• The Liugui Security Path 六龜警備道 – a 53km former Japanese-era police road; I did a two-day chunk of it
• The JinShuiYing Historic Trail – 浸水營古道 – one of the south’s classic through-hikes: an easy, well-trodden old road crossing the Central Range from Pingtung to Taitung, layered with Qing, aboriginal, and Japanese history.

The map

If you’d rather browse by location than scroll a list, every hike I’ve written up is pinned on my Taiwan Hiking Map – click a peak, get the write-up and GPX. Looks best on a large screen.

One disclaimer, because I have to

I’m not a guide and these aren’t instructions. Half of what’s on this site is me doing something slightly stupid and getting away with it. Mountains down here are remote, conditions change fast, and you’re responsible for your own safety. Read my full liability disclaimer, do your own homework, and don’t follow my exact route up a mountain. Seriously.