The hardest part of any itinerary is usually not where to visit or when, but for how long. There are always disagreements online over how much time each place deserves, with some people claiming to have fully explored everything in one day, while others take a week. And when it's a hiking destination, timing becomes even more critical. The first consideration is making sure we have sufficient rest between strenuous hikes. The second is the weather. No one wants to show up at an outdoor destination for only one day and get rained out. So when it comes to hikes, we always give ourselves extra days for rest and capricious weather.
We already wrote about the headache Alishan planning was giving us, and the next stop at Shizhuo was not any easier. There seemed like a lot to do there: plenty of hiking trails and tea plantations where one can learn about, taste, and buy tea. Yet the common recommendation was to stay only one night. That didn't sit well with us. What if we were too tired from Alishan, or our only 24 hours at Shizhuo were plagued with bad weather? The map of this village, surrounded entirely by tea plantations, showed at least six different trails. That seemed like a lot for one day. We gave ourselves two nights and hoped we wouldn't regret it.
As always, we were overthinking it. Both Alishan and Shizhuo offered hikes that were gorgeous, all-encompassing, and somewhat emotionally overwhelming, but not at all physically challenging. Every one of the Shizhuo trails was around a kilometer long, and while many involved stairs and steep sections, they hardly required any rest between them. As for the weather, fog and cloudiness are common here and only deepen the overall mood and dreaminess of the place. Honestly, I don't think even pouring rain would make these hikes less magical, given the generous cover of bamboo and trees overhead.
So, did we need two nights in Shizhuo? No. Did we regret the extra night? Absolutely not. We were so taken with Alishan that on the second day, we put our luggage in hotel storage and spent the morning and early afternoon hiking through the park again, rather than taking an early bus to Shizhuo. By the time we arrived, it was around 3-4 pm, and we still needed to do some grocery shopping. Our guesthouse, like most, sat among tea plantations on the steep hill above town, and walking down for every meal would have been too cumbersome. We arrived just before sunset with little time left for hiking. We cooked dinner and ate on our balcony overlooking the tea plantation and had our first taste of Alishan tea while watching the dusk settle over the valley.
Because we had the extra night, there was no need to rush or worry about arriving so late. The next morning, up early after a restful night, we ate a delicious breakfast our host had prepared for us, followed by more delicate oolong tea, and set out for the day.
The first trail was the Mist Trail, a kilometer-long hike up the hill with tea plantations on both sides, eventually leading into a bamboo forest. It started with steep stairs and was our first introduction to what tea bushes and leaves look like up close. The first surprise was how well trimmed all the bushes were, and how pristine and clean the entire plantation was. I rubbed a tea leaf between my fingers, smelled it, even chewed on it a little. There was absolutely no indication that this unremarkable plant, once dried, fermented, and brewed, would release such delicious aroma and taste into a cup of hot water. Either it was a miracle that someone discovered that the Camellia sinensis plant was great when brewed, or early people simply tried brewing and tasting everything.
I was so taken with my musings about tea that I had to constantly remind myself to look around at the incredible view opening before us as we climbed higher: blue mountain ranges covered in clouds, framing the rolling tea fields below. At the top, we entered the bamboo forest, and if there is anything more magical than tea fields, it is a forest of towering columns swaying overhead with morning light filtering down between them in pale, shifting shafts.
From here, we moved on to the Tea Trail, a slightly longer but gentler hike through dense bamboo and eventually back to tea plantations, again with great views of the mountains. Next was the Cloud Trail, around 700 meters long, named for being the furthest uphill and offering the most dramatic panoramas: sweeping vistas across the mountain ranges draped in low-hanging clouds. We walked through it slowly, enjoying the views, the fresh air, the silence, and the simple pleasure of being out in remote nature.
It was well past lunchtime by the time we descended to Shizhuo and walked into the first little restaurant we saw. One delicious clam soup, fried tofu, and bitter melon with egg stir-fry later, we were fully refreshed and ready to continue. We strolled around town attempting to find the entrance to the Love Trail and could not, for the life of us, figure out where it was. This was not an isolated incident. That very morning, while trying to find the Mist Trail, we had inadvertently wandered into someone's front yard and were petting their very confused dog when the owner came out and pointed us at the trailhead.
We gave up and headed toward the Sakura Trail, which was better marked on the map. As the name implies, it features many cherry blossom trees, which unfortunately were not blooming in December. It was still a pretty trail, with a nice boardwalk and fine views of the tea plantations below.
The final trail was the Sunset Trail, a short and easy path following the natural contour of the ridge above Shizhuo, cutting through a patchwork of tea terraces and stands of bamboo. As we hiked up, the valley below lay open and clear, with just a few clouds drifting in at the edges. At the top we were treated to stunning views of the village, the tea farms, and the surrounding mountains. And as we stood there, the clouds kept rolling in, slowly covering the whole valley below. We watched as the clouds crept over the ornamented red roof of the Taoist temple until it was completely gone from view.
"We didn't get to see the sea of clouds in Alishan," Victor said. "But here it is now!"
He was right. We had seen a beautiful sunset and sunrise in Alishan, but the gorgeous heavy cloud cover that this place is famous for had been mostly absent those days. But here it was now, a sea of clouds, a whole ocean of clouds spreading out below us, filtering the rosy sunset rays shimmering through it.
We stood mesmerized. I was thinking of our morning, the tea leaves, the bamboo, the trails, and how the whole day had been building towards this view, this light, and the clouds spreading silently below us.
As corny as it sounds, we might not have found the Love Trail in Shizhuo, but we did love all the trails we did find.
