Tefuye Historic Trail in Taiwan’s Alishan National Park is a family-friendly trail popular with locals. The Tsou people first built it as a hunting trail then the Japanese further developed it into a railway for logging transport of the highly valued giant cypress trees. While the railway no longer runs, the tracks are still visible and make a nice photograph. Along with the stumps of the giant cypress trees which once populated the forest, they stand to tell the trail’s logging history.
Today, the trail has two entrances – one at ZiZhong/Zihjhon (自忠) [~2300m altitude] and the other at Tefuye village [~1900m altitude]. The entire trail is 6.3km with the first 3.4km from the Zihjhon entrance being gentle and flat before it descends 400 meters to the Tefuye entrance. This first section is a stroll in the woods suitable for the elderly and kids and they may turn back before the 3.4km mark and return along the same path to the Zihjhon entrance. However, if you’re looking for a workout, continue past the 3.4km mark to hike down a series of steps to the Tefuye village entrance before hiking up and returning along the same path back to the Zihjhon entrance. There are clear signage and distance markers along the trail so these will be helpful to gauge the remaining time needed.
Starting our hike from Zihjhon trailhead
We drove to Alishan National Park and found roadside parking around 15 minutes walk away from the Tefuye Zihjhon trailhead. We spotted a couple of roadside stalls selling hot food and snacks near the trailhead and decided to have a quick lunch before starting the hike. It was around 12.30 pm by the time we started. We followed the railway track into the woods and discovered many stumps with lush mosses. Many of these stumps were huge and I could only imagine the magnificence of the original forest in its full glory. Too bad that now we can only admire the trees planted by the Japanese after they deforested the original high-value giant cypresses.
The walk was a piece of cake and we took the opportunity to take plenty of photographs. While the trail was nice, I did not enjoy it that much as it was too crowded and noisy for my liking — this trail appears to be a spot for tour groups.
| Route type | Out-and-back or Point-to-Point — we did out-and-back, more on this later |
| Total distance | 6.3km one way / 12.6km return |
| Total time taken including plenty of rest, photo stop, etc. | 5h |
Past the 3.4km mark — onwards to the Tefuye village entrance!
The fun (read: workout) begins after the 3.4km mark. We just went down down down successively for 400 meters until we reached the Tefuye entrance. By then we were exhausted and my legs were aching. There was a toilet at the Tefuye entrance and we had a quick toilet break + rest before starting on the return journey. While resting at the pavilion, I noticed some notices pasted on the pillar of numbers to call for transport service back to the Zihjhon entrance. I guess that’s a win-win for those who couldn’t gather enough energy to make the return journey! Well, that’s not us and up we went again. We were worried that we may not make it back by sunset and may need to walk in the dark — not a desired scenario. And then, it started raining and morale was low. We tried to pick up the pace and after lots of rushing and panting, we were finally back to the 3.4km mark and could be sure the more difficult part is behind us. And at 5.40pm, just about sunset, we were out of the trail!
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