貴子坑，位於新北投，舊名「鬼子坑」，「貴」與「鬼」，音相近， 一字之差，意義迥然不同。這處位於山區的谷地，曾經大量開採礦石， 使水土遭到嚴重破壞，而被當地居民稱為「鬼子坑」。
Roujing's interpretation was that it is a "hell" of a climb:
In any case, due to the inclement weather, we decided on the more manageable four-hour hike rather than the tougher eight-hour loop. Here's Roujing at the start of our trek.
Roujing is a project manager for Wistron Corporation (緯創資通). What I enjoyed was that she knew a lot about the local lore and the local flora of the Devil's Pit climb. She told me that the path we were taking was part of the walking trail across the northern segment of the island, from Danshui (淡水) to Ilan (宜蘭). She knows a lot of fun names of local plants, such as "mountain cleaver" (山大刀), "witch's poison" (姑婆芽), "lovers missing each other" (相思樹), "egret's feet" (鵝掌材) and "laugh out loud" (含笑).
She also pointed out an open canal (like 水道 but I cannot find the actual word in my dictionary) that people in the community still use for their daily drinking water. Here it is.
And we saw the headwater of the canal, as you can see by this placard (0.00 km):
Here's where the canal starts; it runs for miles.
In the 50's and 60's the area had coal mining tunnels, which are now gated shut:
The tunnels were supported by a hardwood tree. When the tunnels were about to fail, the wood began to crack and made a "crying" sound. "If you hear the trees crying, run for your life!"
From the top, we had a magnificent, albeit cloudy, view of the Taipei basin.
Thanks, Roujing, for a great hike!
