Gone Hiking...

Last weekend some of us went up into the mountains northwest of Taipei. In a word it was: AMAZING! It's interesting. Taipei is vast and populated much like Los Angeles is an urban sprawl of humanity. But Taipei butts up to this mountain range that runs from the top of the coast down through the center of the island. We took a bus some distance up the mountain and set off into the forest. Most of the time there was this really cool stone path that was laid by God-knows-who.

We probably hiked a good 7 - 10 kilometers that day. The forest was a vibrant green and lush. I wouldn't call it a jungle, nor a rain forest, but it was pretty close. Off in the distance as we hiked thunder rolled trying to let the rain come down. We wound our way back up the mountain heading for this magnificent waterfall. After a bit of a breather and some pictures of the waterfall that didn't turn out, we were trying to figure out our next path -- up or back down? Thunder rolled again. "It wants to rain," I said.

With that, it started to rain. Then pour. It was awesome. We decided to keep going up and eventually the forest gave way to hills of rolling grassland. It was pretty spectacular. We had gone so high up that there was just mist and clouds around us. The sprawl of Taipei was lost from sight.