A pristine landscape of rock and water at Beishi Stream Old Trail

The opening of Freeway 5 (the Taipei to Ilan freeway) a couple of years ago has made getting to the area a little quicker these days, yet it's still quite easy to spend a day here hiking in remarkably scenic and pristine countryside and see barely a single soul.

With a good hiking map of the area in hand, there are no shortage of routes to explore hereabouts, but, while still far from exhausting the opportunities, my personal favorite to date is the short but outstandingly scenic Beishi Stream Old Trail (北勢溪古道). It only takes about four hours to walk the main part of the trail and return by the same route to the car, but to get to the trailhead from Taipei takes a couple of hours in each direction, so the trip takes a full day.

It's a quick and easy cruise from Taipei to Pinglin these days along Freeway 5, but from there onwards progress is much slower, along local route 42, a narrow road which is constantly winding, although the scenery of steep, wooded hills, countless neat rows of tea bushes, and the blue-green strip of the Beishi River winding snake-like through the bottom of the valley far below makes it a beautiful drive.

Forty minutes or so after leaving Pinglin, the trailhead is reached, marked by a small temple and a stone Earth God shrine, standing beside the confluence of the Beishi and Wantan streams as they combine to form a wide, deep and rather lovely pool known as Sanshui Tan (三水潭). Leaving the vehicle here, turn left, following the road that crosses the Wantan Stream, climbing over a small rise, and continueing down the other side. Soon the road crosses a second bridge over the Beishi Stream. Turn right immediately after crossing the stream onto a dirt trail: This is the Beishi Stream Old Trail.

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