Shek Fa 石花坑 is just a small, not specially interesting, but for two waterfalls, stream with clear water and a bushy steep exit. For the hardcore wants to see it all.
- Beauty/fun: 4.5/10 the lower part is pretty with clear water, fun initial waterfalls. But the higher you go the more messy it gets with several landslide passes and muddy areas.
- Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 6.5/10 if excluding the main waterfall climb wet mode. The navigation on top is not clear. Loose rocks. Relatively short, ending in not so much hiked paths.
- The map (how to download to your phone offline maps)
See full screen & the Garmin track.
An early afternoon I decided to do a recon of a couple of streams around Buffalo pass area. Kind of small but with potential, considering their fun neighbors Wong Chung & Mouse Farm streams. This and Wall Mountain stream are definitely worse than the previous.
Quite some months later, Denvy, who is definitely keen on checking new streams, had just a few hours available and we decided to go and see it with better flow, after some rainy days.
Closest MTR Shek Mun Station. From there we started walking on concrete SE direction. You could start a bit higher with several bridges that cross the stream.
In our case, we started here. Initially with quite some man made structures.
Arriving at the nicest spot. A double waterfall and just after the highest waterfall in the stream.
I had been here before and therefore I knew that it was climbable. But with significant more flow, we decided to play safe. I climbed dry on the right side of it. Relatively clear, although slightly slippery on top. Cross to the left and tide up the rope for Denvy and help her with some indications from above.
The Climber “enjoying” her fun 😄 In case you want more tips a video of how to climb (with less flow than us).
Unless you are really good at this, I would set the rope from the get go going through the easier right side.
Moving forward the jungle gets denser and denser. Loose rock areas, some small landslides…
The exit was not clear the first time I was there. I could see an open space on the right side, but once there I realized that it was not a path but a bigger old landslide… I could see on the openstreetmap that a proper path was not far and decided to go ahead. Good to have full clothes protection and the pruners that I used to open a thorny small section. With Denvy we did it the “correct” way (red line). Going a bit more left we could find some ribbons and a muddy path definitely more hiked than my original way. The path atop, not far from this photo-sphere
is clear but with quite some vegetation. From there you have a lot of options. Among others you can go down to MacLehose relatively easily, spend some time on the picturesque rocks around, or go down Wall Mountain stream. Denvy and I checked an ancient contour path (brown line) but it is not specially interesting. Garmin track of the second day for anyone who is interested to follow exactly our steps.
Full route video where you can watch the bushy upper part (2m50sec onwards) more clearly and they taking the “wrong” landslide exit too 😅
January 7, 2023 at 11:16 am
Thanks for all the information.
I hope you can also explore 花心坑 (Fa Sam Hang) some time and find suitable exits… The entrance is just 100 m south of your starting point at 石花坑 (Shek Fa Stream), and only that early part of the stream can be seen in the usual maps.
OpenTopoMap now shows 壁山溪 (Wall Mountain Stream) mostly as a dashed line. Do you have any idea why? That was not the case yet when I was there in summer last year.
January 7, 2023 at 8:01 pm
Hi Chris.
Fa Sam Hang on my old paper maps ends in the middle of nowhere, approx 100m elevation gain from the closest path above. Very unlikely that I will go soon there 😅 There are too many better tributaries for me to try first.
My guess is that OpenTopoMap just uses the information updated by editors in OpenStreetMap. Anyone can make changes there. I have done so in several streams where the information was wrong. Waterfalls where there was none, wrong and trickier forks for some tributaries and others. In the case of 壁山溪, you can see that Alex0305 3 months ago changed the type of waterway to “drain“. I am guessing because he was there and saw too much concrete on top. If you think it is a natural stream you can change back to the original. The help of more contributors is highly appreciated.
Best.
PS. I see that this is his only edit. So he might have not realized of what he was doing… Or the exact meaning of his action. I will try to contact him, before changing it back
January 7, 2023 at 9:43 pm
Perhaps you underestimate 花心坑 (Fa Sam Hang). Sankala took many pretty pictures and wrote a lot about it (https://www.sankala.hk/2021/08/20210724.html).
I think classifying most of 壁山溪 (Wall Mountain Stream) as a drain is an insult to nature. =) Thanks for contacting that guy! Take care.