When I found out that we would be traveling to Taiwan, I immediately started searching for some places that we could explore. Whenever we visit a new city or country, we always try to explore some of the parks, mountains or trails that they are known for. It is such a great way to make memories during your travels.
I found some blogs describing a trail that follows a group of mountains called the “Four Beasts” that wrap around the capitol city of Taipei. This trail seemed easy to get to and a hike that would only take about half the day, so I added the trail of the Four Beasts to our itinerary.
The “Four Beasts” are Elephant Mountain, Tiger Mountain, Leopard Mountain and Lion Mountain and together these mountains wrap around downtown Taipei offering some of the most beautiful views of the city. Hiking this trail is quite popular, so taxis are accustomed to dropping travelers off at the beginning of the trail near Xinyi Road and picking them back up at the other end of the trail.
The entire trail is approximately 2 1/2 miles long, but can cover more than 4 miles if you travel down the various offshoots from the trail. Walking at a relaxed pace with the occasional stop for pictures, the trail should take about 3 hours and it is full of beautiful lush greenery with plenty of birds, lizards, frogs, squirrels and bats.
The trail is very well maintained and easy to follow. It is clean and most areas are paved in stone or brick and the steepest parts of the climb offer sturdy stone steps with handrails and rope lines. We encountered hikers of all ages on the trail, so it is a great trail for a wide variety of explorers.
There were easy to follow signs along the trail to let you know your options. Many people come to just hike Elephant Mountain, as it is the most popular trail, but there is so much to see on the other peaks and the trail is well marked throughout.
There is something so relaxing and peaceful about walking through nature. Although we were quite close to downtown Taipei, these trails felt completely removed from the sounds and excitement of the city. It was so peaceful and lovely.
Along the trail were several temples, small waterfalls and some inscriptions carved into stone on the mountains. We saw little bird feeders placed along the trail and were harassed by some very friendly squirrels who assumed we brought them snacks.
My handsome “tour guide” aka my husband Nate.
One of the coolest places on the trail is around the first half of the Elephant Mountain trail where you can see a great view of Taipei 101. This beautifully modern building was the tallest in the world until 2009 standing at 1,667 feet tall with 101 floors and over 4 million square feet of floor space. We were able to tour the inside of the building, but seeing it from afar in all of its glory was really cool.
Hiking the trail of the Four Beasts was a wonderful experience. We happened to be in Taipei during the Lunar New Year Festival, so there were many parts of the trail full of people celebrating this holiday in the beautiful springtime weather. We were greeted with “Ni hao” or a formal hello in Chinese and “lín-hó”, which is a more casual hello in Taiwanese by many people all day long. It was a very fun festive feeling and I am really glad that were ended up being in Taiwan for this special holiday.
Similar to Japan, there were plenty of vending machines throughout the city, so as soon as we finished the trail, we grabbed some water and an ice cold Coke and stopped for a little R&R 😉
This was a wonderful experience and if you have the opportunity to travel to Taiwan, I would highly recommend taking the MTR into Taipei and visiting these mountains for yourself. You are going to love the Four Beasts…
