Red squares, floating campfires, aggressive swimmers, bears, killer bees, (seriously), and cliff-face acrobats are only a handful of the dangers that await the millions, (this is a rough estimate), of hikers who flock to Taiwan's east coast to enjoy Taroko Gorge. As if hiking under the blazing sun isn't difficult enough, the place is crawling with things that can kill you. Things like Lingering:
Suspiciously Low Overhangs...
...complete with very thorough warnings about headspace, or lack thereof:
Slippery Surfaces
Cliffs, although if you found yourself in a situation where you were barreling uncontrollably towards this sign, judging by it's placement at the very edge of the cliff, you'd probably have just enough time to read it before heading overboard.
Venomous Snakes
These guys are actually pretty scary as there are quite a few different species of poisonous snakes in Taiwan such as but not limited to: cobras, pit vipers, those green bamboo vipers that live in trees, and the Banded Krait--whose venom typically causes death within 2 hours. Pretty scary stuff huh? Well then hide your eyes because this next bit just gets worse.
That's right. This part of the gorge had poisonous insects and snakes working in tandem to terrify unsuspecting hikers. Luckily, we were able to bypass most of the danger. I say "most" because with all of the signage posted throughout the park, not once were we warned about the perils of riding the park's shuttle buses. There's nothing quite like careening around hairpin curves with a bus that, in all likelihood, is packed beyond capacity while people on scooters pass on all sides and the driver points out historically bad landslides and rock falls such as this one...
...which may not look like much in the picture but imagine staring hundreds of meters up to the clouds and hearing about how an entire cliff face just collapsed one day...this while the bus blows by at about 80 kilometers per hour...There were some moments when I couldn't even look.
If you look at the bottom left corner of this next photo, you'll see the reflector on the top of the "guardrail". Just above the reflector, where the tree line meets the rocks, you can see the aforementioned guardrail again and I'll let you speculate as to how our bus made it from where this picture was taken to the other side of that curve, at high speed of course, without ending up a smoldering wreck at the bottom of the gorge.
I'm not sure what the purpose of this sign is. It's pretty obvious that there's a gigantic dropoff on the other side of the 14-inch high guardrail.
Our day began with a leisurely stroll along the river. We were hoping to hike to a cave where we could go swimming, but that part of the trail was shut down for maintenance. After hanging in and around the water for a while, we boarded a shuttle bus and made our way toward the top of the gorge, getting on and off a few times to hike around other parts of the park.
It was bright at the bottom...
...with the sun reflecting off of the exposed marble.
The cliffs were full of funky rock patterns...
...and shapes...
...and colors.
The subtropical forest at the bottom of the canyon was my favorite part. Take a look at this awesome flora...
..and fauna.
I watched the clouds envelop the subalpine conifer forests (nerd) at the top of the gorge. It's worth mentioning though because pictures hardly do this place any justice. The park's landscape--in its entirety--hosts coastal cliffs, subtropical forests, and subalpine conifers...
...as well as ice cream sandwiches made with pancakes...
...and this scene. Pretty dynamic place.
After a long day of hiking and nearly plummeting to our demise, we wandered around the sleepy town of Haulien in search of food. Naturally, this caught our attention:
As did this...
...and this.
Of the three items pictured above only one of them was able to escape my digestive system...or I escaped its...that's almost a sentence...
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