Taroko National Park

Listen first. Under every other sound here, there is water. It runs fast and pale over grey and white stone, somewhere below you, never quite out of earshot. The air is cool and damp, even on a warm day. When you look up, the walls of rock rise so close and so high that the sky becomes a thin, bright ribbon. Run your hand along a cliff face if you can reach one. It feels smooth and cold, almost polished. That stone is marble, and you are standing inside a mountain range that is made of it.

Welcome to Taroko National Park, on the eastern side of Taiwan, in Hualien County. Taiwan declared it a national park in 1986. It reaches far beyond the gorge most visitors come to see, up into high peaks that rise above 3,000 metres. But the heart of the place is Taroko Gorge itself, a deep, narrow canyon cut by the Liwu River. Over a very long time, the river has carved its way down through solid marble and left these sheer walls behind.

How does a mountain become marble? The story begins under an ancient sea. Shells and the skeletons of tiny sea creatures settled on the seabed and slowly hardened into limestone. Then came heat and enormous pressure deep underground, and the limestone changed into marble. That is why the rock here has those white and grey bands. Each line shows how the stone folded and flowed while it was hot and soft, long before any human being saw it.

Now for the part many visitors miss. These mountains are still rising. Taiwan sits where two great plates of the Earth's crust meet. One is the Philippine Sea Plate. The other is the Eurasian Plate. As they push together, the land is squeezed and lifted upward. At the same time, the Liwu River keeps cutting down. Uplift and erosion work against each other, and the result is this canyon. It is very deep, very narrow, and still changing.

The name Taroko comes from the Truku people, one of Taiwan's Indigenous peoples. The Truku have lived in these mountains for generations. They hunted in the forests, farmed small terraces, and built villages on ledges high above the river. A popular explanation says the word means something like magnificent and beautiful. Other people connect it with the idea of a high place where people live. In any case, this landscape was a home long before it was a park. Truku communities still live in the area today.

The road you probably arrived on has its own story. It is part of the Central Cross-Island Highway, which crosses Taiwan's central mountain spine from east to west. Crews built it in the 1950s, and much of the work was done by hand. Many of the workers were veterans who had come to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. They used picks, hammers and explosives. They hung from ropes on cliffs like the ones around you. The highway opened in 1960, and many lives were lost to build it.

Those workers are remembered at the Eternal Spring Shrine, near the eastern end of the gorge. It is a small pavilion with red pillars, set into the cliff, and a waterfall pours out from the rock beside it. The shrine honours the men who died while building the road. From the path across the river, the shrine seems to sit right on the edge of the falling water. It is a quiet place. Most visitors lower their voices without being asked.

Further up the gorge is a stretch known as Swallow Grotto. Here the walls come so close together that you feel you could almost reach across. Look closely at the cliff face. It is full of small holes and hollows, formed as water wore away weaker parts of the stone. Swallows and swifts have long nested in these openings, and that is how the place got its name. In spring and early summer, watch for small dark birds darting in and out of the rock.

Now look down at the river. Its colour may surprise you. After rain it turns milky grey or a pale jade green. That colour comes from fine particles of crushed marble and other rock that the water carries down from the mountains. Some days it looks almost like liquid stone. Along the banks, you will see large boulders polished smooth by floods. Some carry the same white and grey bands as the cliffs above them.

This is a living landscape, and it can be a dangerous one. In April 2024, a powerful earthquake struck near Hualien. Rockfalls hit several trails and sections of road inside the park, and the area suffered serious damage. Large parts of the park closed while crews checked the slopes and made repairs. Since then, areas have reopened step by step. Some trails may still be closed when you visit, so check the current conditions with the park before you set out.

Even on open sections, you will often see signs warning about falling rocks. At some stops, the park has offered safety helmets for visitors to wear. Please treat these warnings seriously. Small stones can fall from very high above without any sound to warn you. Stay on marked paths, keep away from fenced areas, and do not stop for long right under an overhang. The beauty of this canyon comes from the same forces that make it unpredictable.

Beyond the main road, the park has walking trails of many kinds. Some are short, flat paths beside clear side streams. Others are steep and demanding. One well-known route, the Zhuilu Old Trail, follows a narrow ledge high above the gorge. It traces a path first used in the early twentieth century, during the Japanese colonial period, and some sections may require a permit. Shorter walks still lead you into quiet green valleys. There, the sound of the main river fades and you hear birds and running water instead.

If you travel to the park's eastern edge, the mountains meet the Pacific Ocean. On this coast, cliffs fall almost straight down into deep blue water. In a short distance, the land can climb from sea level to high mountain ridges. This sharp change in height creates many different habitats. Subtropical forest grows near the coast, while cooler forests cover the higher slopes. Monkeys, deer and many kinds of birds live in different parts of the park. You may hear a bird long before you see it.

Before you move on, stand still for a moment. Look at the thin line of sky above you. Look at the bands in the stone, folded long before any people arrived. Then listen again for the river, which is still doing its slow work below. As you walk back to the road, notice the tunnels cut by hand and the small shrines along the way. They are traces of the people who lived here, and of those who built the road through these mountains.