Bushwhacking

The only other time I've bushwhacked is while snowshoeing with the Trouts in the Cascades. I particularly remember Helldog, flying over the snow as if he was Legolas from Lord of the Rings. Today I had another bushwhacking adventure with Tommy, Dan and Bargearse.

We met at Linguang MRT station on the Brown Line. From there, we were to get to Taipei 101 via a couple mountains and park paths, by way of two tunnel crossings. This is all hearsay, as we never made it to 101. Instead, we found ourselves walking circles up and down the mountain. Any time we thought we'd made progress we'd land in a clearing we recognized from earlier. At one point, we found ourselves in a cemetery (Dan noticed one of the tombs had been robbed - very sad indeed) and eventually ran into a fence when we tried to get past it. Turning back we realized we'd taken most paths and decided to bushwhack our way down the hill to the street, to get to the next hill.

After so much hiking in 2007 advising to stay on trail to let old growth forest be, it felt terrible to be tromping down the forest like we did. It's been raining nearly non stop for weeks - so the ground was very wet and just gave way underneath us. If it weren't for Bargearse, a bag of poop in my hand, and sneakers clumped with several extra pounds of mud, I might have made my way down faster. Instead, we got held up trying to figure out the best way down. Bodgy got so nervous at one point he turned back around. But by then, it wasn't even an option. Tommy went back to carry him down. How he did it, I'm not sure, as I thought it was just enough to keep myself from tumbling down towards a sprained ankle and limbs pointing at odd angles.

It ended up being quite an adventure. And when we popped out onto the street finally, we realized we'd just made another circle ending up back at Linguang MRT! An hour and a half of circles. Just as well - it was starting to get too wet and ridiculous. We may try once again before the CNY vacation is over.

(This is for you Dan. I'll post the pictures later. I still think you should blog it.)

...Later has come