Western Hills Forest Park to the ‘Hanging Armour’ Tower (#2)
An A-to-B hike in the Xishan and Xiangshan area that follows forest paths, fire-break roads, and park trails around and over hills and tops.
This hike is not currently scheduled
Lido, then Liangmaqiao—we’re reversing our regular pickups this weekend because we currently can’t get into the Lido Hotel to use the bathrooms, and the Starbucks won’t be open until too late. No bathrooms, no coffee … no good reason to hang about there. There should be time to grab a coffee at the Starbucks by the pickup point at Liangmaqiao, if you’re fast!
With pretty much everywhere shut down for visitors it’s tough to find a good hike right now—especially with all the fire wardens about to stop people from burning incense and offerings for the Tomb-Sweeping Festival. We’ve found a few places to go for a walk, and, while they’re not quite the sort of trail we usually go for, it is definitely awesome to be able to get up into the hills and into the open air.
This trail is the one we did last weekend after we were stopped from hiking up to 'High Bridge' monastery. Not a bad option, especially with clear skies and flowers blooming.
We start off at the Western Hills Forest Park, and hike the park paths up into the hills.
Little side tracks take us off the main paths and into valleys, passing a reservoir and some terraced orchards.
From the reservoir we head up into the hills again. We hike up and down hills, and in and out of valleys, passing the ‘Hanging Armour’ Tower before walking out to the finish.
COVID-19 and participation precautions
The current precautions are minimal. Please read in full here: Operating hikes under COVID-19 precautions
