Castle Peak

  • Castle Peak
  • 583 m
  • Primary factor 573 m
  • Location: Hong Kong
  • Location: North 22.38837, East 113.95345 (GPS on the summit)
  • Difficulty: YDS class 1
  • Climbed November 10, 2019

Information:

How to get there:
Take the West Line" of the MTR to its last station, Tuen Mun. Cross the river and find your way to the beginning of Tsing Shan Monastery Path.
Route description:
Follow this paved road uphill. Do not go this way (left), but continue uphill until you enter the monastery. This is absolutely recommended as it is both nice and interesting, no detour at all.
Leave the monastery along the small paved road, this will connect you dierectly to a path with stairs and a yellow handrail. Contine uphill here. However, be alert, there is a fork higher up where you should turn righ. There is a warning sign here, go this way. The trail now continues uphill mostly with nice stone stair steps. When you reach the main crest, turn left and complete the last few steps to the summit. Near the end there is even a short ladder to help you arrive at the highest point. It is nice to see that the highest point is accessible despite of the antennas. This strategy should be adopted on many other mountains.
We decided to make the trip a bit longer by descending more north. We followed the main crest, moving past more antennas on the left, then descending quite a bit. Care is needed as the trail has solid rocks, but also often loose sand on top of more reliable material. You will follow this route until you arrive at a saddle at location N22.40696, E113.95329, elevation about 185 meter.
From here, one may ascend Kon Shan or just descend back down to the densely populated area below. You should easily find the Light Rail service there that will bring you back to the MTR west line.
Comments:
Pål Jørgen and I left our apartment at 1000, took´the 27A to Sha Tin, then the MTR to Hung Hom. We changed to the West line and stayed onboard until the last station Tuen Mun. After a few minutes of city walking we were at the Tsing Shan Monestery. This is well worth a visit and cáuses no delay to your schedule.
We left the Monestery and quickly picked up the right approach. There is this single right fork (with a warning sign) that must be observed. We were at the summit around 1245, nice views and I was happy that I this time, would reach the highest point. Leaving around 1300, we now headed for the (key) saddle between Castle Peak and Kon Shan. This hike took about 45 minutes and we decided to also visit Kon Shan before returning home.
After descending from Kon Shan, we followed rhe road from the (key) saddle downhill until it hit another road. Going right here led us fairly directly to ascend the Castle Peak from here, a nice bonus for the trip.

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