It takes about 90 minutes of negotiating some seriously windy mountain roads to reach the entrance from the nearest main road at Dahu (大湖). If the scenery was already wonderful down below, that landscape pales beside the magnificence of the panorama further up. Even before reaching the roadside plaque announcing entry into Shui-Pa National Park, the grandstand view of Taiwan’s high mountains is absolutely stunning.

And it was to goggle at this unsurpassed view of the central high mountain range, and especially the awesome 10-kilometer-long knife-edge ridge known as the “Holy Ridgeline” (聖稜線), that most visitors came to Shue Jian until it closed a couple of years ago in order to improve access roads and facilities inside the park.

The park finally reopened on Jan. 8 this year, and the very first weekend after this we found ourselves driving up the newly improved, but still bumpy track to the entrance, wondering just how difficult it must have been to get to this place before the authorities carried out their improvements.

As we approached the entrance at about 7:30 in the morning, the clouds were already beginning to roll over the seemingly impassable battlements of the mountain wall opposite, while a magnificent cloud sea blotted out the valleys far below. The darned white stuff already blanketed the two great mountain peaks (Dabachienshan and Snow Mountain) that bookend this awesome ridge, and we had to make do with picking out their forms in pictures from our book taken (in far clearer weather than today) of this very view.

About four kilometers along the approach road, the tarmac ends, and apart from a brief return to smooth bitumen as the road passes a large sign announcing the border of Shei-Pa National Park, it’s a rough and slow-going six kilometers from here on. Finally, however, the redwood weather-boarded walls of the visitor center stand beside the road. Leaving the car here, we committed a major faux pas by bringing our dog Gem out for a walk, only to be told off by a stern park ranger, who informed us that animals—even well-behaved, adorable golden retrievers—were definitely not allowed inside, and we had to lock the poor animal back in the car.

Leaving both car and dog behind, we set off further into the mountains, following the unpaved forest road as it contours the mountainside, towards the trailheads for Mounts Dongxishui (東流水山) and Beikang (北坑山), the summits of which afford the greatest views over the mountains and across to the Holy Ridgeline.

If we’d known earlier, we’d have stopped off at the police station in Zhong --ing (中興) on the way out and have picked up a mountain permit (which takes some ID, five minutes and NT$10 to process). In the event, however, it seemed no great hardship walking the hour out to the first trailhead along the road. We thoroughly enjoyed the first half-hour of the walk; in places the forest beside the road opens up, giving views across to the mountain bastion across the way, although it was rapidly disappearing behind an all-enveloping wall of cloud and mist.

And then the cars started coming. First a couple, then whole convoys of them clutching those pesky mountain permits, all belching out choking exhaust fumes and shattering the peace of this rare place. It was pretty obvious the best part of the day was over, and as we made our way back, dodging vehicles as they roared round the corner and picking up bits of trash thrown down by thoughtless day trippers, it was hard not to consider the fate of this pristine slice of wilderness, now that it’s been opened up to the car-driving masses.

That ranger’s verbal attack on us and poor Gem back at the visitor center had seemed strangely overzealous at the time, but now I think I understand better. The rules were written to allow him to keep pet dogs from destroying the pristine beauty of Shue Jian; sadly, however, he has no control over the crowds of noisy day trippers that seem destined to ruin this special place, now that it’s reopened once more.