Yunsen, Jiemei, and Senshan Waterfalls, Sanxia, New Taipei (雲森, 姊妹, 森山瀑布)

Yunsen

As a fairly quick escape from the heat of the Taipei Basin or Taoyuan plains there are worse places to go than the gorges above Sanxia. Along with the spectacular and somewhat terrifying Wuliaojian Trail there are a number of waterfalls and river tracing spots. This area is best reached with private transport as buses here are awkwardly routed and infrequent.

Lush forest in the gorges

Yunsen (Cloud Forest) is one of the most popular and beautiful waterfalls in the area. Jiemei (Sisters) and Senshan (Forest Mountain) are located on the same stream, though Jiemei is a distance from the other two.

There isn't a lot of clarity online about directions to this place and after numerous wrong turns and a failed river trace later I've decided to post my own guide up here. All three waterfalls can be visited easily in a day. I recommend starting with Jiemei. There's some climbing involved with that one so it'd be best to do it before any afternoon rains arrive.

The small parking lot for the hike is located up a narrow industrial road that barely has space for one car. Driving here via scooter from central Taipei takes about one and a half hours and makes this last part a little less sketchy. Another option would be to park and walk up the industrial road, which I estimate would take about 15-20 minutes.

Jiemei

From the parking lot head forward and downhill. Ignore the trail branching immediately to the right. This old route has been washed away and it will make a frustrating start to the day. Instead continue along the wide track until you come to this fork:

There's a short walk and climb down to a wide slate riverbed with a fast flowing river. There is one largish pool here that makes for a refreshing place to cool off in summer. It also has number of large crayfish and small fish within.

Summer day above Jiemei

Head downriver carefully as the shale is crumbly. The river disappears of a cliff and it's a little too dangerous to get a good look over. A scramble down a jumble of boulders on the side of the valley is the easiest and least deadly way down. Jiemei is a powerful waterfall even after a few dry days and is a popular place to camp. It's also possible to river trace up to this waterfall from a point on Zhongkeng Industry Road but I haven't tried that. There's no real pool to bathe in but you can get quite close to the waterfall base.

Yunsen and Senshan

There are two ways to get to these waterfalls: an easy hike or a tricky river trace.

The River Trace

Some parts are quite pretty but not many

At least with this option there's little chance of getting lost. Simply head upriver. However it's a grueling trace with many stretches of completely jumbled boulders. It was very slow going. Myself and some friends tried it over summer. After about an hour and a half we'd gotten about halfway.

While trying to work out a route past a wall of boulders a bamboo viper concealed in a plant bit my friends hand.

Life taking root in tough conditions

We hurried back down the river and met an ambulance at Xiongkong. The hospital in Sanxia seemed crowded and understaffed. It was a weekend and there were many motorcycle accident patients. Apparently you should not tourniquet bites despite the popular wisdom (I still think there is some debate around this). Also antivenom is extremely slow acting, which is not what I expected, and it didn't help that the IV in the hospital wasn't functioning properly for a while. It's very important you know what snake bit you so get learning those species! Eventually we moved him to Mackay in central Taipei where he recovered. Given how tricky the trace was and that it doesn't pass anything special I don't really recommend it, even if you don't encounter a snake.

What a hand looks like an hour or so after a bamboo viper bite. Eventually the whole arm painfully swelled and were it not for antivenom parts of the flesh would have begun to die.

Odd couple

The Hike

The trail to Yunsen is fairly level, well maintained, and has some great views in places. The forest is teeming with birdlife and you may see monkeys too. The trail starts just above the Jiemei car park. Take the trail on the right that forks off from the industry road. While some older blog posts state that the trail is damaged by typhoons it has now been completely repaired and sturdy bridges have been built. It takes about 45 minutes to reach the waterfall area.

One of a few well made bridges

After crossing through an open area (an old landslide) head down to the riverbed on the right. There's a nice view up the valley here and Yunsen itself can be glimpsed through the trees.

Idyllic river valley with Yunsen in the distance

Head back up and take the main trail to the base of the waterfall. Yunsen is a really beautiful cascade that seems to mist a little as it falls. It's one of the tallest in the area too. A shaded pool at its base is good for swimming though the rocks to climb up to it are quite slippery.

Follow the trail up and past the head of Yunsen. A few minutes further Senshan Waterfall plunges into a steep gorge. Unless you're swimming it's not really possible to get close to this one.

It would be a pretty impressive waterfall and worth a trip in its own right but Yunsen makes it feel like a bit of a runner up. I think it's still worth taking a look and a network of small trails gives some pretty good views. The main trail continues on from here but I'm not entirely sure where it goes, possibly to Zhulushan and a couple of smaller waterfalls. Including one called Yiyin that seems smaller and I actually got mixed up with Senshan. One for another time. It was getting late and I needed to head back to Taipei.

The adventures that make up these entries are often posted as Instagram stories at tomrookart first. So give that a follow too if you like as it can sometimes be a year or more before stuff turns up here. All locations here are on the Hidden Taiwan Map. I keep this project free of intrusive ads but it does take up a fair bit of time. If you would like to support it please either buy some of my work here (use code hiddentaiwan for a discount). Or book through this link at My Taiwan Tour, who cover a huge range of places and experiences in Taiwan.

Harvesting bird’s nest fern. You can cook this and it’s quite tasty.

Senshan from above

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