Most people visit Yushan National Park (玉山國家公園), the largest land-based national park in Taiwan, to do the Yushan Main Peak trail. However, that hike requires a permit, which typically involves a four-month advance booking process (here’s how to do it).
If you didn’t manage to accomplish that, or perhaps you’re looking for a shorter hike with awesome views of Taiwan’s tallest mountain, then you’re in luck. There are three connecting hikes in Yushan National Park which can be done without a permit: Lulinshan, Lulinqian, and Linzhishan trails.
I recently hiked all three of these right before hiking to Yushan Main Peak. In this article, I’ll tell you exactly how you can hike one or all three of these, including the time needed for each one, why Linzhishan is the best if you only choose one, and a map of the trails.
It’s worth noting that there are no easy hikes in Yushan National Park. These three hikes are moderately difficult and include lots of stairs.
Yushan Non-Permit Hikes Overview
Before I get into all the details, here’s a general overview of the different possible combinations of these hikes that you may consider.
| Trail | Time Needed | Notes |
| Lulinshan | 1.5 hrs return | – Less interesting on its own – More like a connecting point between the other two peaks |
| Lulinshan + Lulinqian | 2.5 hrs return | – Includes cool observatory – Limited views of Yushan |
| Linzhishan | 1.5 hours (to Yushan Main Peak trailhead) or 2.5 hrs (back to parking lot) | – Best Yushan views – Choose if you only do one – Easiest to do before climbing Yushan |
| Lulinshan + Linzhishan | 2 hours (to Yushan Main Peak trailhead) or 3 hours (back to parking lot) | – Slightly longer version of the previous option |
| Lulinshan + Lulinqian + Linzhishan | 4 to 4.5 hours | – Best but longest – Only do this on same day as Yushan Main Peak trail to Paiyun Lodge (another 5 hours) if you’re in good shape and start early |
See my guide to Mianyue Line, another super cool hike in Alishan region that requires a permit, but I explain how to do part of it without one. And here’s my list of other great hikes around Taiwan.
Fun Fact: Lulinshan, Lulinqian, and Linzhishan peaks all sit almost exactly on the border of Nantou and Chiayi counties.
Getting to Lulinshan, Lulinqian, and Linzhishan
You can get to Yushan National Park by car, private shuttle, or bus.
By Car
By car, you would most likely be driving from Sun Moon Lake or Alishan, so you’d likely start your car rental in Taichung or Chiayi, respectively. See my guide to renting a car in Taiwan.
There are two places you can park to access these trails. The first is a very small parking lot here to access Lulinshan, which is between the other two trails.
The second and most common way is the larger Shangdongpu parking lot, which is the main parking lot for Yushan National Park and location of Dongpu lodge, where most trekkers spend a night to acclimatize before hiking Yushan.
For my visit, I drove and parked at Shangdongpu, spent the night in Dongpu Lodge, did the three non-permit hikes the next morning, then hiked to Paiyun Lodge on Yushan Main Peak trail in the afternoon.
The upper portion of the highway from Sun Moon Lake to Yushan is only open from 7 AM to 5:30 PM. The road from Alishan to Yushan is open 24 hours.
There’s only one spot along either highway where you can actually see Yushan. It’s here on the drive from Sun Moon Lake to Yushan.
By Private Shuttle
You can catch a ride to Shangdongpu from anywhere in Taiwan by ordering a Tripool (use code Nick2026 when signing up for the app to receive discount vouchers by email) or by contacting any of my recommended drivers for a quote.
Expect to pay around TWD 6000 from Chiayi HSR to Shangdongpu or 5000 from Sun Moon Lake.
Dongpu Lodge also offers pickup (by minivan) from Alishan for TWD 1200 or from Shuili (with bus connection to Sun Moon Lake) for 3500. Book it here.
By Bus
By Taiwan tourism shuttle bus from Sun Moon Lake or Alishan, you’ll get off here at Shangdongpu parking lot.
There’s one bus per day from Sun Moon Lake to Shangdongpu (depart 8 AM, arrive 10:30 AM), with a second one on weekends and holidays (depart 8:30, arrive 11:00).
Here are the bus times and here’s how to reserve a seat on the bus. I do recommend reserving because it’s a very popular tourist bus route from Sun Moon Lake to Alishan, two of Taiwan’s most famous attractions.
Since the bus will get you to Shangdongpu before noon, one idea is to do the three hikes that day, sleep at Dongpu Lodge (reserve 30 days in advance – just email them for English booking), then ride the bus onward to Alishan (depart 10:30, arrive Alishan 11:00) the next day.
To do the three Yushan hikes as a day trip, it would only be possible on Saturday or Sunday, when there’s a second later bus.
You’d ride the first bus of the day from Sun Moon Lake to Shangdongpu (depart 8:00, arrive 10:30), do the three hikes, then ride the second (and final) bus of the day back to Sun Moon Lake (depart 16:00, arrive 18:00).
If you’d be OK with doing only one of the hikes (Linzhishan), you could do this on a weekday. Take the first bus from Sun Moon Lake to Shangdongpu (depart 8:00, arrive 10:30), hike Linzhishan, then take the bus from Shangdongpu back to Sun Moon Lake (depart 13:30, arrive 16:00).
Elevation Considerations
If you only plan to hike the three non-permit hikes, elevation won’t be a major concern.
The highest you’ll go is 2862 meters, and you’ll only be staying that high for an hour or two. You may notice that you get tired or short of breathing a little easier, but you’re unlikely to suffer any major symptoms.
However, if you plan to hike to Yushan Main Peak as well, you need to acclimatize for one night first. The best way to acclimatize is to spend a night at Dongpu Lodge (2580 meters) next to Shangdongpu parking lot, and this is what I did.
It doesn’t matter whether you do the three non-permit hikes on Day 1 (as soon as you arrive) or Day 2 (after your night at Dongpu Lodge).
As long as you spend the night there before climbing up to Paiyun Lodge (the main lodge for those summiting Yushan) and Yushan Main Peak, you should be good.
As an extra precaution, you can ask your doctor for a Diamox prescription. Personally, I know from experience that I am quite sensitive to elevation. So, on top of acclimatizing, I also take Diamox when going anywhere above 2800 meters.
For reference, Paiyun Lodge is 3402 meters and Yushan Main Peak is 3952 meters.
The Yushan National Park Non-Permit Hikes
Now I’ll cover the three hikes in greater detail, in the order that I did (and most recommend) doing them.
Following the above map, we’ll be starting at Shangdongpu parking lot, walking up the access road (black line) all the way to where it meets Lulinshan Trail (red), doing a side trail to Lulinqian (blue), then following Linzhishan (orange) all the way to Yushan trailhead.
If you plan to do only one of them (I recommend Linzhishan), you’ll take the black access road to the start of it and finish at Yushan trailhead.
Lulinshan Trail
Lulinshan (鹿林山 or Lulin Mountain, 2881m) is the tallest of the three peaks (but just barely, and doesn’t feel that way. It is a connecting point between the other two.
Reaching this peak felt anti-climactic to me, since there was no view from the peak. Therefore, I only recommend doing this one in combination with Lulinqian and/or Linzhishan.
There are two different ways you access Lulinshan Trail. The first way is to park at its dedicated parking lot here on the highway (only a few spaces available). I’ve also marked it on the above map.
However, since there isn’t much of a view from Lulinshan, you’d want to add either Lulinqian (total 2.5 hours total) or Linzhishan (3 hours) or add both Lulinqian AND Linzhishan (4 hours).
The second and more common route, and the way I did it, is to park (or get off the bus) at Shangdongpu, the main parking lot for the national park. My below instructions will be from there.
After spending the night at Dongpu Lodge, I woke up very early and decided to tackle the three non-permit hikes before hiking Yushan Main Peak Trail. I only recommend this for regular hikers who are in good shape.
After checking out from Dongpu Lodge, I walked up the vehicle access road to Yushan National Park (15 minutes, uphill, see photo above) to Tataka Police Station and Paiyun Mountaineering Center (Yushan National Park Visitor’s Center).
The latter is where I checked in and showed my permits for Yushan Main Peak, which I’d be doing later in the day. The center also has restrooms, drinking water to fill your bottles, and information about the trails.
From there, I continued up the car road towards Yushan Main Peak trailhead.
About halfway there, and 25 minutes from the Visitor’s Center, I reached the Giant Taiwan Hemlock (大鐵杉, here), a huge tree, which also has a restroom beside it.
The tree sits at an intersection, where I turned right and walked up a different car road (玉山林道 or “Yushan Forest Road”), which provides access to the three non-permit hikes.
I followed the signs to Lulin Lodge and Mt. Linzhi Entrance.
Fifteen minutes up this road, I passed the access point to Linzhishan Saddle (麟趾山鞍部, here).
If you plan to ONLY hike Linzhishan (see final entry), you turn left here and walk 0.8 km to reach the saddle.
Since I planned to hike all three trails, I kept walking along Yushan Forest Road (towards Lulin Lodge) and started to enjoy my first high mountain views of the day.
I could also make out the white Lulin Observatory in the distance, which I’d soon be climbing to.
After 10 more minutes, I reached Lulin Lodge (鹿林山莊, here), which used to be used by hikers preparing to climb Yushan – before Dongpu Lodge, that is.
If you had parked at the small Mount Lulin parking lot on the highway, you would have hiked up a different trail from there to the lodge.
From the parking lot behind the lodge, I followed a road further uphill and found more restrooms plus a water bottle filling station.
Continuing upward, I finally got off the vehicle road and onto a path through the forest. It was nice to finally be on a trail, but didn’t take long before I was huffing and puffing.
Only a few minutes up through the forest and I found myself at the peak of Lulinshan, which has a stone marker but, like I mentioned above, no special view.
As I took a break here, I was joined by a cute little bird that was not shy at all. I’d later look it up to find that is a white-whiskered laughing thrush.
The signs here pointed right to Lulinqian and left to Linzhishan. It makes much more sense to do Lulinqian first (i.e. go right), come back to this spot, then proceed left to Linzhishan.
Lulinqian Trail
Lulinqian, or more completely Lulinqianshan (鹿林前山, 2862m) literally means “Lulin Front Mountain”. It is slightly lower than Lulinshan but feels higher when you reach it (you go down and then up again to reach it).
Unlike Lulinshan, when I got to Lulinqian, I felt like I’d actually reached a mountain peak, not to mention it has a cool astronomical observatory.
Lulinqian is essentially an add-on to Lulinshan – the only way to get there is via Lulinshan. It took me just under an hour to hike to it and back to Lulinshan, and that included hanging out on its peak for 15 minutes.
From the Lulinshan stone marker, the path went through the forest (photo above), with occasional glimpses of stunning mountains to my left (photo below).
The path descended for about 700 meters, then ended with a steep, 300-meters uphill staircase up to the summit.
The summit houses various structures of the Lulin Observatory (鹿林天文臺, here), which in 1999 was moved here from a university in Taoyuan, where increasing pollution had been preventing it from being effective.
I enjoyed hanging out on the summit for some time, taking in the stunning views to the north and east (towards Yushan, but I could only see part of the massif) and peering at the astronomical equipment.
I then retraced my footsteps back to the Lulinshan stone marker.
If you only want to do Lulinshan and Lulinqian, then from this point, go back down the same way you came.
However, if you do that, you’ll be missing out on the best Yushan views, which are mostly found along the saddle between Lulinshan and Linzhishan (see below).
You could even follow the saddle for 15-30 minutes to enjoy some of the best views then come back.
Linzhishan Trail
There are two ways you could tackle Linzhishan (麟趾山, 2854m, here), which literally means “unicorn toe”.
The first way is if you plan to ONLY hike Linzhishan. This option makes sense for those who only want to do one of the three hikes, since it has the best views. It also makes sense for those who want to hike to Paiyun Lodge (on Yushan Main Peak trail) on the same day, since this trail ends at the Yushan Main Peak trailhead.
To hike only Linzhishan trail, you’d follow my above instructions to enter Yushan National Park, walk up the road from Paiyun Mountaineering Center to Giant Taiwan Hemlock, turn right up Yushan Forest Road, then access the trail at Linzhishan Saddle (here).
To include this hike with the other two like I did, continue along below.
From Lulinshan stone marker (see the end of the previous entry), I followed the sign to the left and soon passed the point where those accessing the trail from Linzhishan Saddle would.
I walked along Linzhishan ridge for a full hour, enjoying epic views of Yushan and other mountains to the east pretty much the whole way.
These are some of the best views of Yushan that can be had without actually hiking Yushan Main Peak trail.
Besides Yushan Main Peak, from here I could also see Yushan Front Peak, Yushan West Peak, Yushan North Peak Peak, and several others.
Looking out at Yushan peak in the distance, it was hard to believe I would be standing on the top of it the next morning.
Thanks to the epic views and gentle ups and downs, this was my favorite part of the trail.
This was a super fun prelude to my Yushan Main Peak hike later in the day, even though I would become quite exhausted and *almost* regret doing it.
Eventually I reached the Linzhishan peak marker, which unfortunately is placed in a way so that I was shooting away from Yushan, or rather, I was facing Yushan while posing for my selfie.
At least the sky backdrop was nice and blue!
Shortly after the Linzhishan peak marker, the trail rounded some particularly beautiful bends, then descended steeply for thirty minutes.
As I walked down, down, down towards Tataka Saddle (a lowpoint between Linzhishan and another mountain to its north), I could see the Yushan trailhead and a shuttle bus waiting to take hikers back to the park entrance.
On the opposite side of the saddle, I could also make out Yushan Main Peak trail snaking across the mountain in the direction of Yushan.
At the end of the trail, Yushan trailhead, you can either ride the shuttle back to Paiyun Mountaineering Center (TWD 100, cash only, departs whenever they want to) or walk back (45 minutes).
I you’re hiking to Yushan like I was, you’ll start the hike here.
Overall, if you plan to only do one of these three hikes in Yushan National Park, I would choose Linzhishan because it has the best Yushan views.
If you’re hiking to Paiyun Lodge on the same day like I did, then consider carefully whether you want to hike all three of these hikes first.
This means you may struggle through the last few hours of the day like I did (in total I logged 9 hours that day, most of it uphill). Only choose this option if you’re an experienced hiker, you know you can handle it, and you get an early start to the day by sleeping at Dongpu Lodge first.
Alternatively, as a compromise, only do Linzhishan before hiking to Yushan, which should add about 1.5 hours, and leave out the other two hikes. This means you’d log a more reasonable 6.5 hours or hiking that day.
To continue following my journey from here, head over to my Yushan Main Peak Trail article!
Hey Nick! Appreciate the informative article. Do you need a permit to hike to, e.g. the Yushan West Peak Lookout?
Not planning on camping or staying at Paiyun Ldoge, nor summiting Yushan itself. Just want to do a little bit of the main peak trail.
Hi, I’ve answered your question in my “Taiwan Travel Planning” Facebook group!