29 March 2024
Having visited Fenqihu and Alishan on previous days, we did a hike on the Shizhuo Trails System on the final day of our 3-day stay in Shizhuo.
The Shizhuo Trails System consists of 5 trails with names and length of trails as follows:
- Mist Trail 霧之道 (880 meters)
- Tea Trail 茶之道 (1,030 meters)
- Cloud Trail 雲之道 (670 meters)
- Sunset Trail 霞之道 (530 meters)
- Sakura Trail 櫻之道 (990 meters).
The trails are all unique in their own way. Some are built next to the tea plantations, some through cedar forest and some are surrounded by lush bamboo forests. The five trails are at altitudes between 1,370 meters to 1,699 meters, so hikers get to enjoy cool mountain air and amazing scenic mountain views on some parts of the trails.
The trails are somewhat interconnected.
Shizhuo –> Mist Trail –> Tea Trail –> Cloud Trail –>road to Sakura Trail & Sunset Trail –> Sakura Trail –>back to Shizhuo.
The Sunset Trail is somewhat standalone and located in the middle of the circular loop, near the Sakura Trail. This is highly recommended trail with beautiful scenic views as shown later in this blog post. An excellent restaurant is located near this trail and is an ideal place for lunch break or dinner (after watching the sunset).
Unfortunately, I could not find an overall map showing all the trails and how they are linked. This would have been very useful for those planning the hikes.
The entrance to these trails is located at the 63.5km mark on Alishan Provincial Highway 18 which is just after Shizhuo. For those coming by public bus from Chiayi City or Alishan, it is best to alight at Shizhuo and start at the Mist Trail. The location of the trailhead of the Mist Trail in Google Map is shown here.
The Mist Trail is closest to the highway and it is at the lowest elevation. Some people may want to start at the highest elevation (Cloud Trail) and hike their way down. I think it made no difference if you intend to hike all the trails, since it is almost a circular loop.
The trailhead or entrance to the Mist Trail is actually next to the DingShizhuo Observation Deck, a place that we went to watch (and missed) the sunset on Day 2 due to cloudy sky.
The beginning part of Mist Trail ascends through tea farms, including the tea farm that we were staying in, the Siang Ting B&B. Our B&B provides breakfast. We started our hike at 8.45 AM after a nice breakfast with views of the surrounding tea farms.
From our B&B we walked about 200 m on level ground to access the Mist Trail.
I could understand why this trail is called the Mist Trail from what we saw the evening before. When the clouds rolled in, this area would be misty or even foggy. The weather on this morning was clear, so there was no mist to be seen on the Mist Trail.
View of the tea farms along the Mist Trail, next to our B&B.
As we were enjoying the views of the tea farms, we saw a young solo woman hiker coming up the Mist Trail. I always thought that hiking solo in a foreign land is a brave thing to do. Having said that, Taiwan is generally a very safe place for travellers.
The Mist Trail took us up and up through forest and bamboo groves. We came to a coffee plantation and saw our first flight of stairs in the Shizhuo Trails System. This is the first of many that we encountered on this day.
Sign board marking the exit of the Mist Trail. The Mist Trail ended at an industrial road, with a small car park next to it. We took a short breather here before tackling the Tea Trail that starts across the road.
At the start of the Tea Trail.
The Tea Trail cuts through bamboo forest. I think the trail should be named the Bamboo Trail as we saw more bamboo than tea farms.
The first 600m of the 1 km Tea Trail is all uphill, through beautiful bamboo forest. This is like the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto, but without the crowds. We stopped to take many photos of the bamboo forest.
In the peaceful and quiet environment, we could hear birds singing. My wife managed to spot a black bird and took a photo of it before it flew away.
One of the singing birds in the bamboo forest.
The trails in the Shizhuo Trails System are well marked, with signposts and maps frequently located at key junctions.
Signpost in the middle of the Tea Trail.
Shortly after the signpost above, we finally saw a tea farm along the Tea Trail. The tea plantation on right side had sprinklers next to the trail but thankfully they were not turned on.
We stopped to enjoy the views and took a few photos of the neat rows of tea plants. No one was in sight as it was not harvesting season.
During harvesting season, workers would pinch and harvest the top few young leaves of the tea plants. The young leaves are then dried and processed further to become the famous Alishan High Mountain Oolong Tea.
After passing the tea farm, we arrived at the top of the hill. The last 30% of the Tea Trail was flat and easy, through shady forest and more tea plantations on the right side of the trail.
This tea farm has trees planted between the rows of tea plants.
At the end of the Tea Trail, we saw a signboard marking the entrance to the Cloud Trail. The signboard provides a map of the trail, plus warnings for hikers to look out for poisonous snakes, bees, falling rocks and slippery surfaces.
Signboard with map of the Cloud Trail.
The 670 m long Cloud Trail connects the Tea Trail in the north to an industrial road in the south. The trail passes through forest with large fir and cedar trees. This trail at the altitude of 1,500 to 1,680 m is at the highest elevation in the Shizhuo Trails System. It is named the Cloud Trail since clouds were frequently encountered at this elevation, making the forest misty or even foggy. The weather was clear during our hike, so we missed seeing the misty conditions in the forest. I could imagine it would looked quite similar to the misty forest we saw when hiking in the Cedar Boardwalk at Fenqihu on Day 1. 
We found ourselves walking through a forest of giant cedar trees.
Just like the Tea Trail, we could hear plenty of birds singing in the peaceful forest.
Near the end of the trail, there is wooden platform with benches for hikers to take a rest and do some “forest bathing”.
We took a rest at this platform and did some forest bathing. Take deep breaths, relax and observe nature to de-stress.
Continuing on the Cloud Trail to the industrial road at the southern end of the Cloud Trail.
Continuing down on the Cloud Trail, we came to an industrial road which marks the end of the trail. Based on the map on the signboard, we continued along the industrial road, heading towards the Sunset Trail and Sakura Trail.
The industrial road took us through more tea farms with B&Bs.
Magnolia flowers along the path.
More tea farms spotted.
A bit of sea of cloud could be spotted in the far away mountain.
We soon arrived at a road junction where the trailheads of the Sakura Trail and Sunset Trail are located nearby.
We chose to take the Sunset Trail first. Although we are too early for sunset, we took this trail because we planned to take our lunch at the highly raved restaurant (豊合豐禾 景觀餐廳) located near the top of the Sunset Trail.
The Sunset Trail linked two small farm roads located at different elevations. The road on the bottom of the trail offers nice views of the tea farms and mountains to the south and west.
Views of the tea farms from the road at the bottom of the Sunset Trail.
Mountain ranges could be seen beyond the tea farms.
This trail is called the Sunset Trail because there are good spots for observing the sunset or sea of clouds along the road here in the evening or early morning.
We met a group of elderly ladies who had come down from the top of the Sunset Trail. After helping them snapped some group photos, they told us we must go up the trail to enjoy beautiful scenery from up there. That was our intention anyway.
The Sunset Trail is short (530 m) but steep. The bottom part of the Sunset Trail is a wooden boardwalk that goes through a bamboo forest.
Wooden stairs going up through bamboo forest at the bottom part of the Sunset Trail.
Leaving the bamboo forest, we saw the long stairway leading to the sky!
Second part of the Sunset Trail is up and up on the wooden boardwalk through a tea plantation.
Looking up, the climb looked daunting. However, our exertion was rewarded with one of the best views of the day.
Looking back on the stairs that we had climbed.
Stone wall supporting the slopes on which the tea were planted.
Enjoying the views from the top of the Sunset Trail. We could see clouds rolling over the mountains in front of us.
One of the best views in the Shizhuo Trail System.
By now, it was close to noon. The sun was blazing overhead although we did not feel the heat due to the high altitude.
With the help of Google Map, we arrived at the 豊合豐禾 景觀餐廳 restaurant. Goggle Map location here.
The restaurant looked like a tea farmer’s homestead from the outside but we were assured that we were at the right place by the owner who was with a group of men standing along the narrow road leading to his homestead. He told us to continue walking up the slope to his house.
External view of the restaurant. The dining area is on the roof terrace.
The lady owner inside the house took our orders and then told us to go to the top level of her house where the dining room was located. The restaurant is actually operating as a tea farm as well and we could relax and enjoy views of her tea farm as we waited for our food to be served.
The neatly planted rows of tea made a nice zig-zag pattern.
The highly raved dishes at this restaurant include the bitter tea oil chicken and the wasabi tofu that we ordered. The prices for the food made with local produce like tea oil, bamboo shoots and locally grown vegetables are value for money.
Bitter tea oil chicken with crispy ginger slices. We finished all the ginger slices!
Chilled tofu with wasabi sauce. This restaurant included bits of wasabi on the top which provides more kick to the dish. Definitely the best one we had so far.
Crunchy and sweet cabbage stir fry.
Soup with bamboo shoots. The shoots are fresh and sweet.
The lunch is served with free oolong tea that I guessed was produced on their farm. The fragrant tea was quite nice.
For hikers exploring the Shizhuo Trails System, don’t miss the Sunset Trail and food from this restaurant. This would be an excellent place to have dinner after watching the sunset (provided you have made arrangements for transport back to your B&B after dinner!)
After the one hour lunch break, we returned via the Sunset Trail to the Sakura Trail.
Artistically planted succulents outside a homestead along the paved road to the Sunset Trail.
Heading towards the start of the Sunset Trial. The trailhead is at the end of this road, on the left side.
Heading back down on the Sunset Trail.
Spotted a tea farmer at work.
The trailhead for the Sakura Trail is near the bottom of the Sunset Trail. If we had come a few weeks earlier when the cherry blossoms or sakura were in full bloom, Sakura Trail would have been nice.Instead, the flowers were all gone and tiny buds of green cherries were seen.
Sakura Trail is an easy downhill trail. The trail would lead hikers back down to near the Ding Shizhuo Observation Deck. We did not complete the whole trail.
Our B&B is located near the middle of the Sakura Trail so we left the trail and took the road leading to the Wufeng Temple.
If we had continued on the Sakura Trail, we would have passed by the entrance to this elementary school.
This photo shows the bottom part of the Sakura Trail heading back towards Shizhuo, which we did not take. The actual trail is beside the flight of wooden stairs. Both path runs parallel to each other and they are connected at both ends.
The Wufeng Temple is the temple we saw earlier on our way to the Sunset Trail. A couple of tour buses were parked in front of the temple and there are many people enjoying the views of the tea farms and mountains from the front of the temple.
The temple itself is quite colourful and well adorned with colourful dragons on the roof.
Wufeng Temple
From the temple, it was a short walk to our B&B. We arrived back at our B&B at 4 PM. Overall, our hike on the Shizhuo Trails System had taken about 7 hours, including an hour break for lunch. We took it easy and walk at a very leisurely pace.
Our host at Siang Ting B&B, Jun Qi, was glad to see us back early and offered us some of the tea bags from their farm. It was a nice way to spent the rest of the day, sipping hot tea up in the cool mountains.
Enjoying Siang Ting’s Oolong tea from the front terrace while watching the clouds rolled in.
We were contemplating whether to request Jun Qi to drive us up to the Sunset Trail in the evening to watch the sunset and have dinner at the restaurant where we had our lunch.
The weather in the evening turned misty. So no sunset to view again.
Jun Qi told us the B&B next door is offering hotpot dinner at 300 TWD/person. So, we ended the day with a simple, yet enjoyable, outdoor hotpot dinner at the neighbouring B&B.
Simple yet enjoyable hotpot dinner in the cool night of the mountain.