Hiking Taiwan in 12 days: Hehuanshan, Alishan and the Yushan foothills
Taiwan has 268 peaks above 9,840 feet (3,000 m), which is more than most people expect from an island you can cross by train in two hours, and Yushan at 12,966 feet (3,952 m) is the highest point in Northeast Asia. The walking is superb. The permit system is bureaucratic and it defeats a lot of visi
- Duration
- 12 days
- Pace
- Active
- Hotel changes
- 5
- Best months
- Oct, Nov, Mar, Apr
- From
- $2,340 per person
This route is built by someone who has read the rules. It uses the high ground you can reach without winning a lottery, applies for the permits that are worth applying for, and puts the two things nobody should miss at the middle and the end: the cypress forest at Alishan, and the marble country above Hualien.
Twelve days, five hotel changes, about six walking days, and no technical ground. You need to be comfortable on your feet for five or six hours with sustained ascent, and comfortable with altitude up to around 11,000 feet (3,350 m) on a day trip.
Who it suits: hillwalkers, trail runners who want a slower version of it, and people who have done Japan’s alps or Nepal’s teahouse routes and want something less obvious.
Your specialist: Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, with our Taiwanese partner team on the ground.
Day by day
Getting your legs, days 1 to 2
Day 1: Arrive Taipei. Transfer from Taoyuan, about 40 minutes. Nothing scheduled.
Day 2: Yangmingshan. Straight out of the city by bus and up into the volcanic park on Taipei’s northern edge. Qixing Mountain is the highest point in the city at about 3,675 feet (1,120 m), a well-made stepped path through silver grass with sulphur vents beside it, three to four hours round. Good for the legs, and a reminder that this island is geologically busy. Hot spring at Beitou on the way down, which is inside the metro system.
The high road, days 3 to 5
Day 3: Taipei to Cingjing. Private car, about four and a half hours south into the central range, climbing to around 5,600 feet (1,700 m). Afternoon on the ridge walks above the guesthouse. Two nights here to let the altitude settle before the high day.
Day 4: Hehuanshan. The reason this route exists. The road over the central range tops out at Wuling at about 10,745 feet (3,275 m), which makes it the highest road pass in Northeast Asia and puts several genuine high peaks within a day’s walk of the tarmac.
Hehuan Main Peak is a paved hour up to a summit at 11,220 feet (3,417 m). Shimen Mountain is twenty minutes and gives you a 3,000-metre peak for almost nothing. Hehuan East Peak is a stiffer ninety minutes on steps. Between them you can spend a full day above the tree line with the whole central range in front of you and, on the right morning, a sea of cloud filling the valleys below.
There is no permit for these. That is not an accident of the system, it is the reason we build the trip around them.
Day 5: Cingjing to Alishan. Down off the high road and south, about four and a half hours by car through the tea country at Lugu. A stop at a Dongding oolong farm on the way, because the tea and the mountains are the same subject here. Arrive Alishan in the late afternoon.
Alishan and Tataka, days 6 to 8
Day 6: Alishan at dawn. The narrow-gauge train up to Zhushan for sunrise, which is a small red carriage in the dark and about four hundred other people, and which is worth doing once. Then the forest: giant red cypress, some of them over a thousand years old, and a network of well-made trails through cloud forest at around 7,200 feet (2,200 m). Six or seven miles (10 to 11 km) of walking if you want it, and easy to shorten.
Day 7: Tataka and the Yushan foothills. Up the road to the Tataka saddle at about 8,560 feet (2,610 m), where the Alishan road meets the New Central Cross-Island Highway and where the Yushan trail begins.
The Yushan main peak itself is allocated by lottery, months ahead, with a limited number of beds at Paiyun Lodge. We apply if you want us to and we will tell you honestly what the odds are. What we do not do is sell it as a booking.
What we walk instead: Lulin Mountain and the Tataka area trails, with Yushan’s north face directly across the valley, and the old forestry roads that contour the slopes. Five to six hours, high, cold in the morning and genuinely wild.
Day 8: Alishan to Hualien. The long transfer, and there is no way around it. Down the mountain to Chiayi, high speed rail north to Taipei, then the east coast line to Hualien. Five to six hours in total, almost all of it sitting down. The Central Cross-Island Highway that would have taken you straight over has been closed on its eastern section since the 2024 earthquake.
The east, days 9 to 12
Day 9: Taroko, or its replacement. The gorge day. Taroko is marble, vertical and unlike anything else in Asia, and the April 2024 earthquake caused severe rockfall damage through it. The park has reopened in phases and the position keeps changing, including for the Zhuilu Old Trail, which is the great walk here and which needs its own permit when it is open.
We check with the park and our partner at the time of quoting, we apply for what is available, and we tell you plainly if the answer is limited. We do not put a trail on your document that may not exist.
Day 10: Mugua River Gorge and the Sanzhan. The alternative that is not a consolation. A marble gorge south of Hualien with far fewer people in it, where the walking is in and beside the riverbed, the water is cold and green, and there is swimming at the end of it. A full day with a local guide.
Day 11: The Walami Trail. Into the eastern section of Yushan National Park, on the old Japanese-era Batongguan crossing route. A suspension-bridge path through subtropical forest with Formosan macaques in it, seven to nine miles (11 to 14 km) round depending on how far you go, and a permit that is straightforward rather than a lottery. We apply in advance.
Day 12: Hualien to the airport. Train to Taipei, two hours on the coast, then the airport express.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast throughout, all rail legs in reserved seats, a private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on every mountain day, licensed mountain guides on five walking days, all national park entry permits and police mountain permits that your route requires, the Alishan forest railway and the Zhushan sunrise train, the tea farm visit, packed lunches on walking days, all park entrance fees, a day-by-day document with route profiles and turnaround times, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our partner team in Taiwan throughout.
What we would change, and when
- Want to try for Yushan? We apply in the lottery window, which opens months ahead, and we build the trip so that it works either way. If the permit comes through we insert two nights and the Paiyun approach. If it does not, nothing on your document changes.
- Want a multi-day hut route instead? Snow Mountain in Shei-Pa is the strongest alternative, two or three days with a permit that is obtainable rather than a lottery. Add three days.
- Travelling in summer? The mountains are the right place to be in July and August, around 25F (14C) cooler than Taipei, but this is typhoon season and mountain roads are the last thing to reopen after a storm. We hold an alternative for every exposed day and we tell you which those are.
- Travelling in winter? Hehuanshan gets snow and the road closes to vehicles without chains for a few days a year. Alishan is cold and clear and often at its best. We would keep the trip and move the high day.
Honest notes
The permits are the whole game and they are not a formality. National park entry permits and police mountain permits are separate systems, some routes need both, and the Yushan main peak lottery has far more applicants than places. We apply in the correct windows and we are honest about the odds. Anyone who tells you they can guarantee a Yushan summit is either not applying through the system or not telling you the truth.
Day 8 is a five to six hour transfer and it exists because the road that would have made it two hours is closed. We would rather show you the reason than bury it in a timetable.
Altitude on this route reaches around 11,200 feet (3,417 m) as a day trip from a night at about 5,600 feet (1,700 m). That is a real gain and some people feel it. We build day 3 and day 4 in that order deliberately, and the guide turns you round if you are struggling.
Mountain weather here changes fast and afternoon cloud is the norm rather than the exception. Views are a morning thing. Every walking day on this route starts early for that reason and not for the sake of it.
Built by Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, and checked with our partner team in Taiwan before it goes out.
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