Erbazi Trail Hike

August 8, 2025, a cool morning to head to Ankeng LRT Xihe Elementary School (新和國小) Station. It had rained shortly two days ago, but this early morning had clear sky.

Parked YouBike at the station around 5:55, noticed a man with a bright blue 10-15L hiking-looking backpack, not sure if he was waiting for someone to hike some place.

Surely I was going for a hike, although carrying a cotton shoulder bag might not seem so, but a black Decathlon lightweight shirt and a pair of no brand grey pants with four front pockets plus pairs of discontinued Decathlon hiking shoes and socks would add a bit of credibility.

Still twenty minutes before the first tram bound for Shuangcheng (雙城) Station, so I walked past the escalator and entrance, sitting down by Water Resources Agency building behind a bus stop. There were three or four people sitting around the building, I wondered if they were also waiting for tram, but didn't want to go in too early.

6:05, I got up and walked to the entrance, just before stepping on the escalator, I noticed there was an ultraviolet disinfectant device hooked onto the handrail belt. Technology, right? But doesn't UV disinfection need certain exposure duration?

As I reached the gate, I took out my phone instead of an EasyCard, I was going to try out TWQR Boarding Code (乘車碼). TaiwanPay was promoting such method of payment, although I could only use it on LRT, very few transport companies support it in Taipei.

The gate design for QR code scanning was ergonomic, the scanner on top of the gate, very easy to place the QR code to scan. A beep was almost instant and the display showed the information. A second or two, TaiwanPay notified that I had entered this LRT station.

This was my third time to take Ankeng LRT and the most comfortable one since it's first tram and heading away from Shisizhang (十四張). There were five people at any given time on the tram, driver included.

Around 6:32 I got off with the other only passenger, scanned TaiwanPay QR code, the display and my phone indicated that the fare was $25. I left the station and took a photo of it with the next tram bound for Shisizhang.

I started Google Fit's tracking and noticed more than a handful people, exercising or walking dogs. There didn't seem any residential area within visible range.

Heading towards Antai Road (安泰路), this was going to be a 2.6km of boring uphill walk to reach trailhead. Probably at 1.4km, I heard key clinking and saw that man who got off the tram, he had walked 1.4km (and ~71m climb) to this place. I could not imagine to spend this much of time and energy for transportation.

100m later, cold water running out of a pipe provided welcoming freshness. I'd already feel warm. 300m later, dragon fruit cacti up high on betel plants, that I had never thought seeing, a unique companion planting. I'd only see them on short wall or in overhead trellis.

A few hundreds meters, I heard chatting, then three people walking down with hiking poles, we had brief and silence nods. I did thought of asking which peak they just came down from.

Finally at 7:17 I reached the trailhead.

After 45 minutes, the hike was about to get started. While I was doing my preparation, tucked in pant bottoms into socks, spraying repellent, took a few ceremonial sips of water to mark this great hike is going to be; I noticed some commotion behind me.

There were a few people, three or four and a couple of vehicles. I honestly didn't know who they were and why they were here. They were about 50+ in age, might be exercising?

Not sure since I just noticed the muddy entrance way, what a great start.

Started the Alltrails recording, walked through the concrete blocks on the grass to avoid mud. Just ten meters in, already a very apparent trail on the right, that route must be the one drawn on Google Maps, but I was following app's map.

Less than three minutes, I was already off trail, it took me another two minutes to convince myself that suspicious asphalt-looking right-turn narrow path I avoided just a few moments  ago was the correct way.

Continued and annoyed by spider webs, so I picked up a stick and started the wiping but mysteriously the webs still got to my face.

7:48 a landslide and fell trees and lots of branches had blocking the trail, carefully skirting the area, trying not to fall off slope.

7:58 surprised to see a pond and little had I known I was going to waste about 30 minutes of getting lost.

Kept going forward and turned right, this was the point when directions were gone. From inspecting recording, I might turned right too hard. I should have hiked down from the steep slope. I remembered the curve edge, and it seemed too steep to even consider to go down and that's partially why I didn't notice that I had taken a wrong direction.

Instead of right turning, I could instead turn left following the curve, that's heading north and that's what I did on the second time there.

The other mistake was I misread or remembered the contour levels, it's declining, but I somehow thought it's climbing, that's why I took U-turn a completely wrong direction, because there was a climb.

I knew something wasn't right, because the direction was wrong, I was facing where I came from, but I thought as soon as I climb up, the trail would be there, but I forgot I had just taken a U-turn a minute or two ago. If I was going to correct the heading, I would have to come down and went through the U.

Anyway I climbed up and realized that I was on a narrow ridge line and top of surround area. Still not a clear head, just wondering why the direction was completely opposite. Went back and down a bit and up again, now I realized I was almost going circle.

Instead of retracing, I decided to cut down and went back to the trail after the pond. So the second time at the curve slope, I just followed the curve and headed north. A moment later, I was going parallel to the trail 20 meters below.

I decided to force down because it's not too steep, lots of tree for support, so I went down and reached the trail drew on map. The rest was barely uneventful to reach Butterfly Trail (蝴蝶步道) and the Erbazi Botanical Garden's (二叭子植物園) parking lot.

This hike was my first time to lose direction and somewhat going in circle.

The trail had no significant blockage or overgrowth, it's kind of open. Kind of counter-intuitive to think an open trail would cause me to lose direction. When I started to lose direction, although the terrain would require me to put in a bit effort whether climbing up or down, it's still quite easy to manage.

I didn't bring a hiking pole, but I did have gloves with me. Neither was a must, I didn't put on gloves. I could climb with tree branch wiper in one hand, still relatively safe.

The trail probably was less than 100m in elevation, and less than 1.8km (Google Maps' route) in length. It should be way less than one hour hike, but it took me 91 minutes.

By the way, I encountered no one on the trail.