My Mountain

When we walk out the front door of our apartment building, we look directly into a park, Elephant Park. If you walk through the park, you will arrive at a National Park and my mountain, Elephant Mountain. The city park is home to an endangered species of tree frogs. I have never seen one, but during mating season, I know that they are there. Elephant Park is everything you would expect in a park. Every morning there is a group of older women who practice Tai-chi in the shadow of the mountain. The roosters start crowing about 5 a.m. and the chickens can been seen all day. Couples leisurely stroll down the tree lined walkways and a basketball game is always in progress, unless it is 5 a.m. or pouring rain. I enjoy looking at the park and watching what is happening from our balcony. Most days though, I walk past the park to get to Elephant Mountain, my mountain.

It got its name because an explorer thought it looked like an Elephant's Head with the trunk extended toward the ground. The statues in the picture are on Elephant Mountain, but they don't mark the start of a hiking trail, they just look good I guess. The hiking trail begins about 100 yards further south. When we arrived in Taipei, Mark was the first of us to hike on Elephant Mountain. We weren't in very good shape for climbing mountains and only tackled the trails when feeling very brave. Gradually though I realized that I really like hiking up a mountain, even in the heat of summer. The occasional hike turned into a frequent hike and now I hike on my mountain or its neighbor, Tiger Mountain three to four times each week. Mark usually comes with me now about twice each week. My mountain isn't a big mountain but you need to climb up and down about 2500 stair steps to make it up the trail and around the mountain. It takes about 1 hour now. When we started, much more time was needed. Now though, I often sit at the summit and visit with friends, or read or just look out over the city. This week because of the typhoon, I missed my usual hikes. So today, I waited for afternoon, hoping the trails would dry out and then took off to see my friend, the mountain.

It is a rain forest environment, complete with ancient ferns, snakes, lizards, frogs, snails, mosquitoes, amazing foliage, moss, and lighted, granite-paved trails. It is after all a popular mountain. I have met people who climb to the summit of the mountain every day to have lunch with their friends, or play badminton. And on clear days, photographers by the dozens line up to take the perfect cityscape picture, including the 101. I like to say hello to the people who I see on the trails. I am starting to recognize some of the regulars. But I know that it is my mountain even when I share it with everyone else because I always feel better after visiting it for a while.