Smangus: Sacred Trees & Communal Living

We found a 2,700 year old Ent named Yaya (mother) in the middle of Taiwan. The red cypress is the second tallest tree in Taiwan and largest in the ancient grove at Smangus. It would take 24 adults to circle her hand in hand. In total, the grove consists of twenty trees, all of which are over a thousand years old.

The grove resides near the village of Smangus, a little town made of thirty five families in the heart of Taiwan. It’s reported to be Taiwan’s most remote village; located four hours from Taipei up in the mountains, it might be. The only way to access the village is by car or bus and it’s literally over a few rivers, through the woods, up a mountain and across a landslide area. If you plan on making the trip, don’t eat too much before leaving or it might come back up during the last two hours, which is composed entirely of up/down switchbacks.



Far away from civilization, the future of the aboriginal village wasn’t looking good in the early 1990s. At this time, Smangus wasn’t on the map yet and most people had never even heard of it. The great trees hadn’t even been discovered; they were a thing of legend, a story for grandparents to tell their grandchildren. In a last ditch effort to save their community, the village collectively decided to invest in tourism. They started combing the woods, making trails and happened upon the grove of ancient trees, giving the village an accidental gold mine.

With the discovery of the ancient grove and the hiking trails complete, people started to pour in. In the early days of its success, families competed against each other to attract guests and it was very hard on such a small community. Poorer families were getting left behind and outside resort companies were sniffing around for way in. Basically, with its new found success, Smangus found itself in danger of losing itself again and the families came together one more time to form a collective.



Consequently, Smangus is Taiwan’s only example of successful communal living. Today, the cost of labor, expenses and incomes are divided equally between each family. Everything is shared. The system has worked and the village has managed to hang on to its own language, culture and aboriginal identity without losing itself to outside developers. Along with community effort, Smangus also survives on government grants and self-sustaining agriculture practices. The village has its own school, lodge, church and a handful of restaurants.

To preserve the integrity of the environment, Smangus capped the number of visitors allowed in the village each day. They started with 450, but soon reduced that to 250 to make sure the trees don’t suffer from heavy foot traffic. The trail for the ancient grove starts in town and then winds through bamboo forests, scenic overlooks, peach orchards, and mushroom farms. From the village and back, it’s 11 kilometers and takes about five hours to complete.

This isn’t a sweaty ascent hike; it’s just a beautiful walk in the woods and a great way to unwind from the city. There’s plenty of shade and rest stops along the way. Bring your own toilet paper, but you could risk leaving the sunblock at home. As you walk around, enjoy taking big gulps of the mountain air and keep your eyes peeled for Taiwanese pheasants. It’s not uncommon to see them near the trail.

Getting Around

As mentioned previously, the only way to the Smangus is with your own set of wheels, which we don’t have. So, when Taiwan Adventure Outings announced an upcoming trip for the village, we jumped on board. At the risk of sounding like an advert: we had fun, learned a lot, made new friends, bonded over German mind games and introduced the Europeans in our group to the camping tradition of s’mores! Success!

If you have your own set of wheels, you can book everything directly through the village’s website. For accommodation, you can stay in the village or in the new campground that just opened. Pick the campground. It’s in a beautiful spot overlooking the mountains and there’s a connecting path that joins it to the hiking trail.

Treasure Hill Artist Village

Treasure Hill is intended to be a safe space where artists can visit, produce, display and sell their work. Along with a darkroom, Treasure Hill also has a piano room, bamboo room, business meeting room and many other options available for artists to take advantage of. In addition to studio spaces, Treasure Hill also provides event spaces for displaying art. Artists can rent different rooms, ruins or wall space around the village.

Event spaces and specialty rooms are rented by the hour or day. If you’re an artist looking for something more long term, Treasure Hill does offer artist lofts for rent as well as an artist in residency program. To qualify as a resident artist, you need: at least three years of professional experience in your field, English or Chinese ability, and to provide a proposal. Treasure Hill is even open to accepting foreigners. In fact, when I visited, an expat was occupying the underground rooms with his sound exhibit. The qualifying criteria for an artist loft are more relaxed, but of course they are also more expensive.

If you’re not an artist and just want to check out some independent, thought provoking work, Treasure Hill is a great place to explore. There are alleys, side alleys and then diagonal alleys to the side alleys. Where there isn’t an alley, there is a random narrow staircase leading up to a quiet rooftop with amazing views or an artist studio.

Honestly, take a friend and play some hide and seek, even the artists probably get together for some intense games of flashlight tag. If this is your first time visiting Treasure Hill, a good piece of advice is to just keep going up and check out the view. As you make your way around, be on the lookout for graffiti installations, rooftop gardens and old ruins from the 1930s and 40s.



Treasure Hill first got its start as an anti-aircraft compound in the 1940s. Soldiers fleeing the civil war in China came over, set up their guns, stole electricity from the city and used the river to sustain themselves. Of course, the guns are gone, but some of the old architecture stills remains.

To save the area from demolition, the settlement made a deal with Taipei City Government to do restoration work and transform itself into a self-sustainable artist community. The, official, Treasure Hill as we know it today, opened to artists and their entourage in the early 2000s.



True to form, urban agriculture has become a huge part of the community, which grows a large portion of its own food and uses filtered rain and river water when possible. Also, electricity is still kept to a minimum and they probably have to pay for it now, but the living spaces do come stocked with air conditioning and water heaters. They aren’t sadists.

In conclusion, Treasure Hill is a great place to spend an afternoon getting lost in the artist culture of Taipei. There are bars and cafes on the grounds, so you can grab some refreshment and enjoy sustainably grown food between touring the exhibits and hunting down wall art. Another great thing about aspect of Treasure Hill is that it will never get old. Artists are always coming and going, consequently, the space is always changing.

Getting Around

Treasure Hill is ideally located for a day trip. The community is a few minutes’ walk away from Gongguan MRT station, one of the more happening areas of Taipei, with lots of: street food, beer gardens, music venues, stores and great restaurants to choose from. If you want to expand from a daytrip, Treasure Hill has a nice hostel on the grounds, giving ordinary muggles the ability to hangout and make connections. Also, it offers fantastic views of the river that divides Taipei and New Taipei City.

The community is open to the public every day, except Monday. Opening hours for the exhibits and restaurants start at eleven in the morning and end around ten at night. Be warned, many artist studios keep their own hours and close for the day around six. Also, touring Treasure Hill is completely free of charge, making it an affordable alternative to actual museums.

Hiking Favorite: Sandiaoling Waterfall Trail

You’ll get wet, muddy and land on your butt a few times, but it’s an incredible hike. Located on the Pingxi Rail Line, this trail starts at Sandiaoling Station and terminates at Dahua Station. In total, there are four waterfalls on the trail and it’s possible to add a fifth by continuing on to Shifen once you finish the hike. Along with swimming under the waterfalls, you’ll get to play on braided rope bridges, climb log ladders and walk through fairy portals.

The first waterfall, Hegu Falls, is a medium-sized-double falls that’s very pretty and easy to get to. Continuing on from Hegu Falls, the trail really comes alive with moss covered rocks, over-hanging trees and the sound of water in the background. After swinging across the rope bridges and maybe even stopping for a swim, you’ll come to the main attraction: Sandiaoling Waterfall. This 30-meters-high waterfall shoots out over a massive overhang, so there’s plenty of room for exploring behind the fall’s curtain.

Sandiaoling Waterfall is mesmerizing; we could have easily spent an hour watching the water curtain fall and then dissipate on the rocks below. Unfortunately, we were also trying to outpace a loud group of women who had paid for a guided hike. Hearing squeaky voices gain on us, we stuffed our faces with a little bit of lunch and moved along to the head of the falls.

Imagine our surprise when we found another waterfall waiting at the top. Turns out, the head of Sandiaoling Waterfall doubles as the base of Pipa Cave Falls. Pipa Cave and Sandiaoling Waterfalls are very similar. Both shoot out over massive overhangs and Pipa Cave is only a little smaller than Sandiaoling, resting at 25 meters. The base of Pipa Cave Falls is more fun to explore, getting your feet wet and climbing around. Just don’t fall off the edge; the rope is there for a reason.



From here, make your way to the head of Pipa Cave Falls, you’ll be rewarded with the ability to hang out and walk around under the overhand. Again, just don’t fall. This is the last main waterfall, so enjoy. When you’re ready, keep moving up; you’re almost at the fun rope/log ladder or what’s left of it. When a hiker was badly injured, the ladder was deemed a safety hazard and has since been replaced with some gaudy metal stairs. They did leave a small section of the ladder in place though, so you can imagine what the whole thing would have been like previously. Honestly, they were probably right about the safety hazard, but that doesn’t make the metal stairs any less boring.

Soon the trail spits you out onto an actual path. (From this point onward, everything becomes less scenic and more dangerous. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people turn back instead of continuing on to Dahua Station.) There are two options. To exit the trail, follow signs for Dahua Station. To check out the actual head of Pipa Cave Falls, go the other direction. It’s a good spot for another swim and not too far out of the way. Still being chased by the sound of female voices, we continued on to Dahua Station.



The path soon turns into a road, but you don’t stay on this very long. After five minutes, you’ll see a trail that takes you back into the woods. Take it and stay on it until you come to Xinliao Village. Here, the path turns back into a road and you want to go left at the fork. Soon, you’ll arrive at a large, ornate gate that’s guarding the entrance to an abandoned car park. Next to the gate, there are some stairs. Take them. This five minute detour leads down to a small abandoned shrine, overlooking the fourth and final waterfall of the trail. It’s small, but pretty.



Make your way back up the stairs and into the carpark. There’s an abandoned ticket office with a set of stairs next to it. The stairs are the entrance to the last and most dangerous part of the trail, which mostly consists of overgrown, loose steps that are incredibly slippery and just want to kill people. When possible, walk on the mud, leaves, anything but the actual steps and you might make it out alive.

Assuming you don’t die, the trail is almost over. Cross the red pedestrian bridge straddling the Keelung River and soon you’ll find yourself back on the train tracks. Follow these to Dahua Station. From here, catch a train to Shifen or begin the journey back to Taipei.



Total, the trail takes almost four hours to complete (not including swimming time). Bring food, small towels and a camera. There are no restrooms on this hike, so use them at Sandiaoling Station. An upside, though, is that most of this hike is in the woods, so you don’t have to worry about turning into a piece of bacon as you would on other more exposed hikes.

Getting Around

From Taipei Main Station, hop a train bound for Sandiaoling Station. As soon as you disembark, you’ll see signs for the trail. Follow them. As you exit the station, there are some overgrown, forgotten buildings next to the path that you can explore. Further down, the trail follows the railroad tracks to the town of Sandiaoling. These are active tracks, so keep your ears open and camera ready.



Follow the tracks until you pass an old white-washed school. Here, cross the tracks and follow the steps up. This is the trail head and there is a sign/map posted next to the tracks. On weekends, locals will be set up with food and drink stands. They may or may not be there on weekdays.



To get home, catch a train at either Dahua or Shifen to Ruifang. At Ruifang Station, get off and transfer to a train bound for Taipei. On weekends, you’ll probably have to make this trip standing up, so it’s best to wait for an express train. This way you’ll only be on your feet for thirty minutes versus an hour on the local train.