Banping and Teapot mountain, adventurous trekking near Taipei

Jiufen and Jinguasha are favourite weekend getaways for Taipeians. Fresh air, great scenes, history and Jiufen's old street offers a huge variety of snacks to sate the almost endless Taiwanese appetite. These obvious draws hide an even better reason to visit, the hills around these towns provide adventure and spectacular views of North and Northeast Taiwan.

There are numerous options for treks. There's the short, sharp trek up Keelung Mountain, a couple of routes to Houtong, a route all the way to Longdong on the Northeast coast and a circular route around the hills of Jinguasha. There's most probably many more routes to be discovered too.

Today, we'll focus on the circular route around Jinguasha. This trek offers a tunnel to crawl through, a rope climb up a short cliff, spectacular views over North Taiwan and a long walk to exercise those muscles of yours. It's adventurous and a great break from city life, though, if you have children, it's probably best to leave them at home.

The route starts from the parking area by Cyuanji Temple. Go through the walk tunnel, walk about 50m and the path towards Teapot Mountain starts. It's a windy path that passes some old entrances to the gold mines and provides some great views of Keelung Mountain, Jinguasha and the Pacific. It's steep but the paths are well laid out. It takes about 30 minutes to get to Teapot Mountain, an amalgamation of rocks that actually looks like a handleless teapot.

Here, the route disappears into the rocks. It confused us at first, ropes supports lead into the cave and were attached to the top. We climbed to the top of the rocks only to see people walking on the other side but no save way down. How?

tb continued