Taroko marble

Taiwan is being built by a continental collision, and Taroko Gorge is the proof: the Liwu river has cut a canyon nearly a kilometre deep straight through solid marble, walls of it polished by the water, rising faster than erosion can wear them down. The marble is quarried at Hualien and the same metamorphic belt produces Taiwan’s nephrite. Read this before you plan a trip: a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on 3 April 2024 blocked thirteen sections of Provincial Highway 8, and nine typhoons since have damaged 28 stretches of road in total. The park is open in pieces, not whole. The visitor centre, Taroko Terrace Trail, Tiansiang, Dacingshui, Chongde, Dali-Datong, Liwushan and Cianyanlishan are back. Shakadang, Swallow Grotto and Baiyang, the three everyone comes for, are shut until 2031, and the Changchun Shrine will not reopen before 2029. Buluowan Terrace and the Tunnel of Nine Turns are due back this year. This is a national park: come to look at the marble, not to carry it home. PUBLIC national park, partially reopened.