Bruce and Philip planned to start on the Xikeng trail 西坑林道 starting in Xiaoyi 孝義 hiking south up to Ayu mountain 阿玉山 or Lumen mountain 露門山 then down toward the Fushan Botanical Gardens 福山植物園 or to the Hapen trail 哈盆越嶺古道 then west out to Fushan village 福山村. Dan and Thomas joined us, planning not to go through but up and back to the first peak.
The Xikeng trail 西坑林道 follows the abandoned road bed of highway 9A 9甲 along the west side of the Ayu river 阿玉溪. Highway 9A once connected Shuangshikou 雙溪口 near the current entrance of Fushan Botanical Gardens 福山植物園 going mostly north almost twenty kilometers to XiaoYi 孝義 just east of Wulai 烏來 in southern Taipei county. The road was in use at the close of the Japanese era for military trucks carrying people and material through Yuanshan 員山 to Ilan 宜蘭, where the Japanese operated an airfield during the second world war. Over the years we have watched the forest road slowly disappear, gradually covered by landslides and its bridges washed away by typhoon downpours, then limited traffic keeps the road used an ever shorter distance. Today highway 9A runs only from QingTan 青潭 to XiaoYi 孝義 via Wulai 烏來.
Bruce spots a Reeves' Muntjac 山羌 (Shān qiāng) Muntiacus reevesi on the trail ahead of us. As we approach the peak of Ayu we climb into foggy and soaked forest where we are walking in the clouds. The top of the mountain is a grassland of thick chest-high wet arrow bamboo 箭竹 Fargesia spathacea and vetiver, thatch grass or sogon grass 茅草 Vetiveria zizanoides or Chrysopogon zizanioides. The name of the mountain "A-yu" 阿玉 comes from the Atayal pronunciation of their word for thatch grass. The trails down to the south and east are impossible to find. At the peak there is a small cement building, where we take a break before deciding to come down the way we came leaving the cold wet mountain top behind. We are back out to Xiaoyi 孝義 before 7PM, an hour after sunset.
