Hey hiking friends,
Anusha here with the Friday hiking journal. It's about Feicui Reservoir this week, a water source in reserve for the greater Taipei area.
Feicui means emerald in Chinese, and Feicui Reservoir does look like a beautiful emerald surrounded by mountains. I did this hike for the first time in March 2020 by myself, and I did it again with friends in March 2022.
Located in Shiding District, New Taipei City, Feicui Reservoir or Feicui Dam has 460 million cubic meters of water storage capacity.
We started this hike from Erge Park in Shiding, passing old relics like house foundations. There were villages here many years ago.
During the Japanese Occupation, coal was discovered in the 1920s, bringing prosperity to Shiding for several decades. We still can see some traces on the trail, for example, this ventilation.
But just when we were about to see the ventilation, I got bitten by a horsefly. Those bugs are 10 times worse than leeches if you ask me. Lucky for us, this incident didn't stop us.
The view was so beautiful that we stayed in some areas longer than we should have, but this is the benefit of hiking with friends. We can take our time and enjoy things on the trails.
Other than the old coal mines, some sections of this trail used to be the defense lines to control the indigenous people during the Japanese Occupation.
While on the trail, we saw a peak called Niaozuijian, meaning bird's beak in Chinese. We decided to go there to take a look. I'm so glad we took this detour because the view of Feicui Reservoir was even better. I didn't visit this one in 2019.
Because we took too many long breaks, we would hike in the dark if we continued our hike. This was a 14 km long trail. So, we exited the trail, which was a great surprise, at least to me. We found a great spot to see the whole Taipei City. This will be a great place to see the fireworks on Taipei 101 on New Year's eve.
That's all from this week's hiking journal. Here's a photo I took from my flight to Kinmen looking at Feicui Reservoir.
Soon, the year 2023 will arrive. I wish you a great 2023 ahead. Thank you so much for being part of Taiwan Hikes. I'm so happy that many people are interested in the mountains in Taiwan. This also motivates me to write posts about my hikes.
Take good care, and I'll talk to you soon.
Anusha