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Updated Thursday, August 30, 2007 0:00 am TWN, By Richard Saunders, Special to The China Post



	A lofty eminence studded with old and beautiful temples and monasteries inhabited by grizzled old monks, shrouded in a picturesque misty veil for much of the year, Lion’s Head Mountain (Shihtoushan, 獅頭山) is Taiwan’s answer to China’s sacred Buddhist mountains Emei and ... Enlarge Photo

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Man and nature in harmony at Lion’s Head Mountain

Thanks to some clear signposting and the convenient car park, Water Curtain Cave sees its fair share of people on Sundays, but other paths nearby are less busy and provide short and easy walks through some rather special scenery. Highly recommended is the short (half-kilometer-long) but scenic ‘Sticky Rice’ Bridge Walk, starting next to the Water Curtain Cave car park and dropping into the narrow and dark gorge just downstream from the cave.

Leaving the road, the wide surfaced trail descends gently into a picturesque glen to cross the stream by a wooden bridge. The stream here has cut a deep and impressive defile through the hills, with sheer rock faces rising straight out of the water, which has carved shallow overhanging caves, their mouths half-covered by a thin curtain of long roots and hanging plants. Just above the bridge the river bed is carved into a succession of large, rounded potholes.

Looking downstream, the rocky bluffs quickly close in like pincers, forcing the stream through a cleft twenty meters or more deep but barely a meter wide, spanned by a single-arch stone bridge made of stone. This is the ‘Sticky Rice’ Bridge (糯米橋) itself; the stone blocks of the bridge (which is a century old) are stuck together with mortar made (believe it or not) from a mixture of rice, brown sugar and lime! Across the stream, the trail climbs high above the water, crosses the rice bridge and finally climbs back up to the road.

A visit to the cave and the bridge will fill an undemanding and cool hour’s walk; turn left and it’s just a couple of minutes along the road to return to the car park. Alternatively, cross the road, pass through the Lion’s Tail Arch (獅尾牌樓) and take the Shihshan Historic Trail (獅山古道) which begins directly opposite up onto the lion’s back to rejoin the crowds at the main group of temples on the far side of the mountain.

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