Dali and Datong are two Truku villages in the mountains of Taroko. The Truku are one of Taiwan’s 16 officially recognized indigenous peoples, and the Taroko Gorge area is their traditional territory. If you have driven the Suhua Highway down Taiwan’s east coast, from the mouth of the Liwu River past Chongde to the Qingshui Cliffs, the mountains directly above that stretch of road — Mt. Liwu, Mt. Qianliyan and Qingshui Mountain — are where Dali and Datong are. No road reaches them. The only way up is on foot from the Taroko Visitor Center.
Truku families still live here, and hikers heading for Qingshui Mountain have to pass through. Out of that meeting has grown a kind of village homestay culture that you rarely find elsewhere in Taiwan’s mountains: something between a mountain hut and a guesthouse, where a Truku family gives you a bed and two meals after you walk up. The biggest reward of the trip is the Mt. Liwu lookout at 1,100 meters, a 180-degree view straight onto the Pacific with the Qingshui Cliffs at your feet.
In October 2021 I did this two-day hike with my seven-year-old son. This post is about what it is actually like to walk: which section is hardest, where you can rest, how dangerous the descent really is, and what to watch out for if you bring a child.
The Dali Datong route and how hard it is
The two villages sit on a gentle plateau between the Shakadang River, Mt. Liwu and Qingshui Mountain, at roughly 800–1,200 meters. On a map there seem to be several trails, and first-timers get confused, but nearly everyone follows one main line: start at the Taroko Visitor Center (about 100 meters above sea level), climb steeply up the Dekalun Trail and the Dali Trail to Dali, where the Shakadang Forest Road begins, then follow the gentle forest road 6.4 km to Datong. To come back, you either retrace your steps, or drop steeply from Datong to Sanjianwu on the Shakadang River and walk out along the Shakadang Trail, 4.6 km, to the Central Cross-Island Highway. That second option is the Dali Datong loop.
For Dali and Datong alone, most people plan two days and one night; adding Qingshui Mountain makes it three days. You either camp or stay at one of a handful of half-board village homestays near Datong, which you need to book in advance. Dali and Datong are outside the ecological protection zone, so no entry permit is needed. A permit is only required if you continue to Qingshui Mountain.
In terms of difficulty, think of the route as three sections. The first, from the trailhead to the Shakadang Forest Road, climbs 800 meters in 2.8 km, and the Dekalun Trail’s share of that, 300 meters, is nothing but stairs, roughly 80 floors’ worth. The trail itself is safe, with no dangerous terrain, but if you do not exercise regularly that gradient is a real test of your legs. The second section, the Shakadang Forest Road, is gentle and easy, just long at 6.4 km. The third is the loop’s descent from Datong to Sanjianwu: 700 meters down in 2.8 km on a rough trail, with one landslide slope of loose rock about 10 meters across and large boulders that are wet and slippery under the broadleaf canopy. The locals are clear about it: do not walk this section in the rain.
From the trailhead to Datong takes an average hiker about 6–7 hours. My son and I were much slower; the trailhead to Dali alone took us five hours. There is essentially no phone signal in these mountains, so download an offline map before you go.
Current status: after the 2024 earthquake
The April 2024 Hualien earthquake devastated Taroko, and most trails in the park were closed for a long time. The Dekalun Trail and the Dali–Datong Trail reopened in the summer of 2025, closed again briefly in October because of a landslide-dam alert upstream, and reopened on October 23, 2025. But the Shakadang Trail, which I used to walk out on the second day, was still closed when I checked in September 2026. That means the loop cannot currently be completed; you have to go back the way you came. Check the trail status on the Taroko National Park website before you go.
Getting there, and the night before at Xincheng Station
The Taroko Visitor Center is the trailhead, and it is very close to Xincheng Station on the Taiwan Railway: about 10 minutes by bus (both the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle Taroko route and the Hualien Bus service stop there). From Hualien Station, the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle takes about 40 minutes.
Since it was just me and my seven-year-old, and a child walks much slower than an adult, I wanted to be sure we reached the homestay before dark. So we stayed at a hotel across from Xincheng Station the night before and took an early bus up the next morning. Arranged this way, the whole Dali Datong trip fits into a weekend.
Section one: 800 meters up to the Shakadang Forest Road
The hardest part of the whole Dali Datong route is the climb at the start, from the trailhead up to the Shakadang Forest Road: 800 meters of ascent in 2.8 km. The trail has three names along the way, the Taroko Terrace Trail (north section), the Dekalun Trail and the Dali Trail, but it is really one path going up. Regular hikers do it in under three hours. My son and I took five hours to reach Dali.
The Taroko Terrace Trail and the Dekalun Trail: 80 floors of stairs
The Taroko Visitor Center stands on the Taroko Terrace at about 100 meters above sea level. The trailhead is beside the bus stop: 100 meters of paved, accessible Taroko Terrace Trail, and then the Dekalun Trail begins.
The Dekalun Trail is named after the Truku village of Dekalun that once stood on this terrace. It is 1.2 km long, gains 300 meters, and is stairs on a boardwalk the whole way. Put simply, you are climbing stairs, about 80 floors of them. It is safe and easy underfoot, with a viewing platform every so often where you can rest, and anyone with the legs for it, day-trippers included, can walk up for the view. The higher you go the better it gets: inland is the Eternal Spring Shrine area of Taroko Gorge, seaward is the alluvial fan of the Liwu River.
The Dali Trail: a steep climb through primary broadleaf forest
The top of the Dekalun Trail joins the Dali Trail. The Dali Trail starts down on the Suhua Highway and climbs all the way to the Shakadang Forest Road; most hikers come up the Dekalun Trail rather than starting from the highway, mainly because of parking and transport. From here the path runs through low-elevation primary broadleaf forest. It is clear and well maintained, and the bigger steps have fixed ropes, so it is still safe and easy going. After the stairs, my son started stopping and starting as expected. When you walk out of the forest and see a few abandoned farm vehicles, and the trail becomes a small unpaved access road, you have reached the start of the Shakadang Forest Road.
Dali village: a place with history
Dali’s original name is Xoxos, which in Truku means the sound of snakes, or a place with many snakes. Truku families farmed and lived here for generations; as people moved down the mountain, only eight households remain, a local told me. But the ruins of an abandoned police station and a church show that this was once a village of some size. Dali lies below the Shakadang Forest Road: 200 meters after the Dali Trail joins the road, a side path on the left leads down for 10–15 minutes, ending at the church.
Under Japanese rule, the chief of Xoxos, Holok Naowi, was a key leader of Truku resistance. He launched the Xincheng Incident in retaliation against the Japanese and fought them for 18 years, until he was defeated and surrendered in the Truku War of 1914. The Japanese paid a heavy price, and learned how proud and formidable the Truku were.
On a typical Dali Datong itinerary, the first day’s destination is a homestay near Datong, still 2–3 hours beyond Dali. But if you start early, you reach Dali around noon, and it makes a fine place for lunch and a long rest, with a look around a village that has this much history. It had taken my son and me five hours to get here. We spent NT$120 on a Coke and a sarsaparilla from the homestay and cooked two bowls of noodles, our reward for the effort. My son had been saying he could not walk another step; the moment we stopped, he was climbing, rolling and exploring all over the village, and played for well over an hour before we packed up for the day’s destination.
The Shakadang Forest Road: an easy 6.4 km
The Shakadang Forest Road is a simple road built for logging that links Dali and Datong. It runs 6.4 km from Dali to Datong, nearly level, easy walking, and passable to small vehicles. The villages are supplied by a cargo cableway from the valley up to Dali, then by farm vehicle along the forest road to Datong. Unlike the high-mountain huts elsewhere in Taiwan, where everything has to be carried in on someone’s back, this cuts the time and cost of resupply dramatically, and it is what makes a village homestay possible at a reasonable price. There is also an older Truku footpath between the villages, the Dali–Datong Trail, but it is much more up and down and far fewer people use it.
Shakadang means molar in Truku, and you keep coming across the name on this trip: the Shakadang Forest Road, the Shakadang Trail, the Shakadang River, and Datong’s old name, Skadang. The pair most easily confused is the Shakadang Forest Road and the Shakadang Trail, which are completely different routes. The forest road is up in the mountains and links Dali to Datong; the trail is down in the valley, following the Shakadang River from the Central Cross-Island Highway to Sanjianwu.
Our destination that day was not Datong itself but a homestay called Sapah Tadaw Mawna (Dadao’s Home), 20 minutes uphill from a junction on the forest road 2.9 km before Datong. The same junction is the turnoff for the Mt. Liwu summit and lookout. The forest road may be gentle, but it is long, and my son had used up most of his energy on the climb; easy or not, he kept asking to rest. As five o’clock approached, to avoid walking in the dark, I had to harden my heart, cut out the rest stops, and keep him walking with my hand under his arm. Dali Datong is not a casual day hike. If you do not hike regularly and want to try it, go with an experienced hiker, and above all start as early as you possibly can.
The Mt. Liwu lookout: the Pacific from 1,100 meters
If you are quick and have the time, you can spend an extra 2–3 hours on day one climbing Mt. Liwu itself (1,274 meters). The summit has a third-order triangulation point but no view. The best view on the mountain is the lookout 20 minutes from Sapah Tadaw Mawna. The path there runs through the forest, clear and well kept, like the homestay’s back garden, and that is why I chose to stay here.
The Mt. Liwu lookout is one of the most beautiful mountain viewpoints I have ever stood on. Whenever you hear a “wow”, someone else has just stepped onto the platform. On the map, it sits on the summit ridge between Chongde Station and the Qingshui Tunnel; anyone who has driven the Suhua Highway knows the cliffs that run for kilometers hard against the shore. I had always looked up at this mountain from the road below. That day I looked down at the road from the top. The lookout faces east, and sunrise here is one of the selling points of the Dali Datong trip; many people come up in the dark to see it. My son would not wake up, so we walked over after sunrise, even though I had carried a tripod all the way up the mountain.
The platform is small, room for about ten people, with a 180-degree view: north to the Qingshui Cliffs, south to Hualien City, and the same deep blue Pacific running between them. A front-row seat over the ocean at 1,100 meters: I doubt there are many places like it anywhere in the world.
The descent: Datong to Sanjianwu (the Dali Datong loop)
On day two, some people go back the way they came, but there is also a mountain path that drops steeply from Datong to the Shakadang River, joining the far end of the Shakadang Trail at Sanjianwu, from where you walk out along the trail. That is the Dali Datong loop. The descent is rougher, so I talked it over with the homestay owner. She thought the weather was good, that my son and I would manage it, and that the scenery was beautiful and the trail well worth walking. So we continued along the forest road into Datong and dropped from there toward Sanjianwu.
The descent from Datong to Sanjianwu is 2.8 km with about 700 meters of drop. The trail is rough and natural, through dense broadleaf forest, but the path is clear enough. By hiking-trail standards there is no dangerous terrain here, no cliffs or rock climbing, and the steep drops have ropes or steps. Regular hikers will not find it very hard, and will be struck by how wild and beautiful it is.
But I would not underestimate its hazards. There is a landslide slope of loose rock, only about 10 meters across. It is easier to cross than it looks, but the danger is far greater than what your eyes tell you: the stones we kicked loose while crossing rumbled and crashed down the slope for a good ten seconds, which tells you the scree runs almost straight down into the valley. A local specifically warned me to keep a close eye on my son for those 10 meters. Beyond that, the trail repeatedly climbs over big boulders, and under the dense canopy this kind of terrain is extremely slippery. So the local advice is: do not walk this trail in the rain. In good weather, it is unforgettable.
People who love mountains carry a romantic gene of some kind, but most of the time the hiking itself is not romantic. Halfway down from Datong to Sanjianwu, the clear sky suddenly turned to heavy rain. The walk got much harder at once, I had to be on full alert, and I turned into the strict father. Fortunately the rain lasted only ten minutes or so before the sky cleared again. After 3–4 hours we reached Sanjianwu, and only then did the weight and the pressure lift. Looking later at the photos of my son’s small figure on that trail, remembering how I had scolded him and what he had pushed through, how could a father not feel for him.
Walking out on the Shakadang Trail
From Sanjianwu there are still 4.6 km of the Shakadang Trail to walk, but from here on it is a popular, easy tourist path: families with grandparents and toddlers, people playing in the Shakadang River, a relaxed and easy mood. We followed the beautiful trail from Sanjianwu to Wujianwu and ate a grilled sausage there. It felt good to be back in civilization. Two days and one night in Dali and Datong, done. (The Shakadang Trail is currently closed; see the status section above.)
Hiking Dali Datong with a child: what I learned
Dali Datong is not a casual day hike. A seven-year-old walked 7 km and climbed 1,000 meters on day one, then descended 700 meters on day two. That proves that when a child genuinely wants to hike and has a little training, children can do far more than adults imagine. But the trip also taught me a few things.
First, budget at least half again as much time as the guides say. A route that takes most hikers 6–7 hours took us nearly nine, and we walked the last stretch without a break under the pressure of the coming dark. Sleeping at Xincheng the night before and starting early is the basic plan for doing this route with a child.
Second, the descent depends on the weather. The loose-rock slope and the wet boulders between Datong and Sanjianwu are fine on a dry day and best avoided in the rain. If the weather is unsettled, going back the way you came is the safer choice, and while the Shakadang Trail stays closed, it is the only choice.
Third, the route is worth it. A lookout at 1,100 meters straight over the Pacific, a night in a Truku village, a meal cooked by the family who lives there: none of that is available on the tourist trails of Taroko Gorge. This is how beautiful Taiwan is, and we have every reason to be proud of it.
