4th November, 2018

Keep your Slopes Safe! 

The hiking in Hong Kong is just as tough as I remember it. We hiked stages 1 and 2 of the Wilson Trail yesterday. Killer steepness, but great views.

The terrain in HK is really steep - makes San Francisco look like Holland - and with spring's torrential rains, the region is subject to erosion and landslides. So, to make human habitation possible, armies of civil engineers work constantly to stabilize the slopes, which are rock-bolted, culverted and capped with concrete. Every slope has a registration plaque emblazoned upon it, and is periodically maintained. I can only imagine the size of the bureaucracy involved in a city of this size.

Anyhow, hiking in Hong Kong is done on concrete paths. The steep sections are staircases, and hiking a 450 m ascent is like hiking up the CN tower, except that the stairs are often 12-15" high - real leg burners. To think we'd hike this stuff during the summer, with Nicholas on our backs. It's not even that hot out now, and we're pretty much melted halfway up the mountain.

Well, it's kind of hellish, but it's a good way to temporarily replace emotional pain with physical pain. We're not sure what Nick's reaction to these hikes would be. Before he got sick, he could hike circles around us, and climb nearly vertical pitches (all those rock climbing gyms we took the kids to gave him mad monkey skillz). All the years of treatment did slow him down, but he was able to get in some good hikes in Kelowna.

 Quarry, seen from Section 2 of Wilson Trail
 Excellent talking birds, seen at the end our hike, in Quarry Bay
 View from Section One of Wilson Trail
 View from Section One of Wilson Trail
 Feral cows abound on Tai Mo Shan
 "Hourly Motel" in Mong Kok. If you actually want the room for a whole night, they look at you with awe.
 Feral monkeys are everywhere in the mountains. They're not native, but are the descendents of (escaped or released) pet monkeys from the 1920s.

Happy Valley Racecourse, where we failed to see a race on Wednesday.

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