I've gone up and down the hiking trails in Tak'eng (Dakeng) 大坑 a number of times, but one thing I had never done was to walk the length of the trail on the ridgetop, the one that connects with all four paths leading to the top. Until today, that is. Not having anything specially planned for this Sunday, and with the weather looking OK (little did I know), and my daughter parked in front of the computer watching her new Barney the Dinosaur DVD, it seemed like as good a time as any to head out to Takeng, and so I did, arriving at the beginning of the No. 2 Trail around 11:15. After securing my scooter, I walked along the road to the No. 1 Trail (still technically closed from typhoon damage, but well-trodden with hikers in typical Taiwan fashion), climbed up to the top of the No. 1, walked the entire length on top of the ridge to where it joined the No. 4 Trail, took the No. 4 down to the bottom, then walked back along the road, and returned to my parked scooter. In all, it took 3 hours and 38 minutes to complete the circuit (and roughly 2 hours to cover the distance on the ridge between the No.'s 1 and 4), and according to my pedometer, I took a total of 15,325 steps in the process. Not a bad workout.
The haze over T'aichung (Taijhong) 台中, combined with the threatening skies over the Takeng region, meant there were no good views and precious little of interest to photograph. At least the heavens had the courtesy to wait until I got home to open up - there is a raging lightning and thunderstorm outside now as I write this!
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