This a brief introduction to a really fun activity that you can do in Hong Kong, enjoying the summer heat outdoors.

In a nutshell, stream hiking is going (usually) up a watercourse, involving hiking, scrambling, and sometimes swimming. Dry and wet options might be available, but it will depend on the path and your ability/preferences.

Gear. You will need shoes with good grip on wet surfaces. The best option is specific canyoning or similar shoes with tons of ground contact (no deep lugs) and specially designed rubber: Adidas canyoning line or five ten access for example. If you don’t want to invest in this kind of shoes (cheapest around HKD600), your second best option is (trail) running shoes with softer soles. I have had a good experience with the Asics 2000 non-trail running series, the new Salomon (since 2017 their rubber is way better, for example, the Wings Pro 3), NB Summit, and others. Try to avoid clunky, heavy, and hard-soled shoes or you will feel like on skates as soon as the rocks are a bit wet. Avoid water shoes with not much upper structure and lacing system. They might be difficult to wear on angled rocks and you might even lose them if the stream flow is strong. Full article explaining further about shoes.

Clothes. Fast drying, non-chafing fabrics. I always suggest bringing swimming wear below, so you can dip into the pools comfortably. A cap, long (or detachable) sleeves

and long tights help to avoid scratches from vegetation and minimize the sunscreen used. Part of their chemicals will end up in the stream… Full post with the clothes I use.

A comfortable backpack that won’t swing around, ideally with a sternum and/or a hip strap. No shoulder bags or similar stuff. Usually, we bring a waterproof bag within, so that your dry clothes, electronics, and valuables do not get wet if you fall into the water or need to climb under a waterfall. The secondary option is using kitchen zipper bags. Full article with the backpacks and bags we use.

Additional security gear. Gloves can help in different ways, but the main one is minimizing the risk of getting in trouble with thorny vegetation. You can use different types, here several from most protective to less.

I like the latter type, with no finger cover, for routes with quite some scrambling/climbing, where I like to feel the rocks. For very jungle-y routes the upper.

A helmet (to avoid being hit by rocks dropped by hikers above you), a rope, and others can be handy depending on the route and your ability. Whenever a rope is needed/recommended, I have written about it in the description of the route. Usually, the ropes I bring are climbing type, but short and thin so that they are not too heavy, up to a max of 25m 7mm one. On a few occasions, we bring machetes or pruning scissors for opening our way in the most jungle-like streams.

2022 update: This is how my stream exploration backpack looks like

In quite some routes you need to be comfortable scrambling. A video summarizing the main concepts.

He mentions that wet rocks should be avoided… Not an option in most of the streams. How to prevent slipping down then? First, your shoes’ grip, already mentioned, will define what you will be able to do. No matter how coordinated and well-balanced you are, eventually, you will get into trouble with improper shoes. It works the opposite too: I have seen unsteady hikers getting way more confident and faster as soon as they started using Five Ten like shoes. Remember, anyhow, that shoes will not make you Spiderman. So be cautious with your waterfall climbing and leaps around…

Not all rocks are made equal. Porous (“relief”) rocks tend to have good grip, smoother ones are the dangerous ones. Add water and lichens (we use to oversimplify saying “dark and green = bad”) and the surface can become ice-like. Any rubber will slip on those. Avoid them as much as possible, but if you need you can still walk on them. Short slow steps on your center of gravity, help with your hands, check for flattest surfaces, not angled in dangerous degrees, and find your way to safer areas asap.

Flash flood

Hong Kong suffers very heavy rain frequently, so you should be aware of the dangers if stream hiking. If you are relatively new to this, try to find an easy exit to a major hiking path as soon as you see the storm around. Look at the sky and the Hong Kong Observatory web’s radar and Isohyet maps (full post about the weather). If you have more experience you might want to “enjoy the fun”. Each stream is different, with some that are “safe” to hike even under heavy rain and others that flood easily and very fast. My two cents for this. Look at the stream structure on a topographic map. The longer the stream, the higher it goes up the mountain, the more water it will gather. The usual water flow and slope around will also affect it. Tai Shing is the perfect example of a stream that is able to gather tons of water in very little time, transforming a nice easy hike into dangerous rapids. This stream has a decent water flow all year long (even in the driest months), it is under the highest mountain in Hong Kong, funneling all the water of the hills around with several tributaries connecting to it and the stream being the lowest point around in a big area.

It gets all the items that I could think of on the checklist for being flood-prone. A little video, with the stream on a slightly rainy day Vs after 30 minutes of heavy rain in all of Tai Mo Shan area.

I have been climbing the stream up to the Peak even under heavy rain with no problem. It is under a smaller hill, with little flow on dry days, sometimes even dry in wintertime, a water flow control mechanism just above Lugard fall, with no major tributaries. Safer on paper and in reality. I am adding a new tag for OK with rain streams. I have hiked those in the rain, sometimes heavy, and were more challenging but doable. Nevertheless, to be clear, do not go too crazy. With Black rain signal every stream will be unsafe and a mess.

Typhoons can change the routes too. Beware of old information (including this web). Forest nice streams can become way more complicated with fallen trees and landslides that destroyed previous easy exit paths. Tsing Tam stream, for example. Therefore beware of old ribbons that might take you to dead ends or unnecessarily risky places. Old ropes set by other groups can be even more dangerous. Do not trust them unless you have been able to inspect the anchoring and if they have been damaged. The more you hike the more frayed ropes you will see and realize the danger…

Bigger groups. Define from the start how you will handle if someone gets lost on the way or two subgroups separate. Ideally, everyone should know roughly the route that you will be hiking on, have an app downloaded on their phones to check offline their location, and know the procedure if they find themselves alone/lost. Several times someone took the wrong tributary or a completely wrong side path out of the stream and took me some time to find them… The simplest way to handle this is to decide beforehand to track back to the last point where you all know 100% sure that you were together. It is way easier to avoid this if the groups are smaller and with similar speed hikers. If you have slower ones with you try to keep them in front, ask them to take the easier parallel side paths (even if they miss some of the stream “fun”), or nicely request the fast ones to wait every now and then and take it really easy. Not ideal.

If you realize that you took the wrong turn on a fork and you are in an unknown (for you) tributary, or directly you are completely lost, do not try to continue or cut across the jungle. Most people without proper exploring experience and, at least, pruners (and ideally a long enough rope, torch, etc) end up further lost in the deeper jungle. Try to slowly retrace till you go back to a spot within your original route. At these moments is when you will really appreciate having a decent GPS watch or better, an accurate app and the phone fully charged. There are quite more rescues than people realize for not being well prepared enough.

Which streams can you hike on? I have already uploaded quite some routes and there are tons more that I will upload little by little. Understand how I grade their difficulty, to avoid getting into unnecessary trouble. You can try to find more routes on your own. On the internet, on webs like hkadventurers or googling 石澗 you should get quite some ideas. In my case, I like to explore and sometimes I just look on a topographic map for a clear stream with steep slopes, which tend to = waterfalls. Little by little, the more experience I got, the easier it is guessing the correct potential of each. Although you can always have nice (beautiful waterfall in a barely sloped stream otherwise) or bad surprises (extremely bushy). There are approx 400-600 streams in all HK territory.

For beginners, you could try the easiest routes. Lo Fu stream, Sheung Tam & Tai Tam mound, Sir Cecil’s stream, for example. Start building your skills and confidence in your shoe grip.

When is the best season to go stream hiking? Obviously the rainy season! Maximum flow will make the waterfalls look at their best.  In wintertime, some of the routes look a lot less impressive and without decent flow or hikers around the vegetation can grow back fast. When it has been very dry before you would need 100-200mm of rain in the previous days to enjoy them fully. Here the start of the 2020 stream season, with several days of heavy rain, after a very dry and hot winter.

The routes with the smallest water flow: Green Dragon, the Flying Phoenix, etc, would require rain very close to your outing to be at their best.

Before ending, remember that this can be dangerous, so be cautious up there. And help us keep the streams clean. Definitely, do not drop/throw rubbish around, don’t use soap in the streams, and try to pick up some random trash (bottles of plastic, etc) left by others. It will make a significant difference if we all do it, even if it is just some few items each time 🙂