Dry stream hiking up to the rock river just under the Hunchbacks. Tons of possible additional fun around to include in a long day in the area.

See full screen & the Garmin track.

Long ago I found the ribbons heading down to the rock river from the Hunchbacks classic route. The easiest way if you just want to ✅ the spot. In late December I spent a couple of days checking the hills under to find a fun loop route to bring friends to. Here the outcome.

Meet at Tai Shui Hang MTR station. Start up the auxiliary road that heads to the mini dam in Ma Dai. Just before arriving to its end you have here the path

heading up to a bouldering area. First time it can look a bit maze like, with tons of tiny paths around the boulders where climbers head regularly.

Including small caves full of crash pads or that (last pic above) huge balancing rock, bolted. If you are into it the HK climbing web has information about all the area. In our case we were just heading to the slab above. Use the GPS to try to find the best approach. The first time there, without proper grippy shoes, I needed to use the rope to descend back and find a better way on the rock. The second day with the Five Ten I was able to guide Ant with no problem.

From the top of the slab

you can connect easily with paths around. By the way, for those looking for “photogenic rocks”, not far from there you can find the Frog Rock 青蛙石.

So if you are not so keen scrambling and you want cute rock pics instead take the green line marked on the map. Both connect with the Ma On Shan Tsuen road.

Approx here go down on the left just before the bridge and

stream hiking time. Late December, little flow, easily doable completely dry therefore.

We were hiking fast, chit-chatting non stop without paying much attention… And we took the wrong tributary… I realized once we arrived to Lantern waterfall.

People used to climb it using the vines and tree root you can see above. It was never very safe, but now it is even less with the tree slightly outrooted. So we went back down, find the correct way (quite some ribbons), chat chat chat, and wrong path again 😅

The tributary connecting with the rock river is too steep. Exactly where Ant is looking up must be a nice looking waterfall after significant rain. This time, I tried to climb on the right side of it. No ribbons, no previous human traces, smooth rocks slippery even with the Five Ten. Eventually I gave up and used the rope to descend and later help a couple of hikers that had followed us to the waterfall area, even if I had told them not to…

If you pay attention to the ribbons and/or the GPS the fork and correct path are clear. Steep slightly sandy/muddy path within the woods, kinda parallel to the stream, in the right side, but significantly higher. Until you eventually arrive at the

Triangular rock river. The reason of the name is clearer with the drone pic.

Rocks, rocks & rocks. Not as loose as the aforementioned Tiger Roar but be careful anyhow. Don’t throw any to hikers below.

The way from there to the main path above is clear again with even more ribbons guiding you up.

Afterwards, we went down Goose Valley Lost trail (purple line) and Ma Dai for the full loop.

Everything you should know before stream hiking.

UPDATE: From Mark, an experienced reader. I copy paste his email, with tiny edit for easier understanding.

I read you visited the triangular rock river on Ma On Shan recently. We also visited there today (24 Jan 2023), and followed the West Horse Belly Left offshoot stream (西馬肚左坑) to the top. It was an ok route, with the stream turning into a narrow chute for a while after the “crux” waterfall, and then leading up through loose rocks to a smaller rock river of grey rock before topping out on the ridge between The Hunchbacks and Ma On Shan. We didn’t have to do any cutting.

The tricky bit is the waterfall (in the attached photo) which you also reached.

We considered trying the left side of this waterfall and heading for the tree I circled in red. The problem was, besides the obvious height risk, the 30m rope I had (when doubled around the tree) would be a bit short to retreat, though I guess we could have just disconnected for the last few meters to the ground. More of concern was we couldn’t really see above the tree, and for all we knew the difficulties could continue a long way still!

What we found is you can follow the red arrow right and after about 40m of loose but not really risky traverse, without any bushwhacking, reach the main trail. From there up the main trail, estimating the height of the waterfall, and found a very faint trail left, which is marked here and there by some ancient faded ribbons. The terrain is loose and a lot of dead trees, but still without any great danger we emerged onto a safe ledge at the blue arrow and looked down the waterfall from the top. From there we saw if one was climbing the waterfall and proceeding past the “abseil tree” is maybe 10m more to reach the safe ledge – a bit tricky…doable, but risky without protection. And a lot more difficult so if there’s water. So we’re glad we bypassed this waterfall, and by the look of the ancient ribbons we certainly weren’t the first to do so. At this time of year I think it’s much easier than when it’s wet in summer, so if you were to attempt this waterfall now would be the safer time to do it.

Anyway, from this point on there were no major difficulties, just the kind of lose terrain you might expect in a rock river area, a bit of hard grunt work, but no dangerous cliffs to surmount. We probably made the ridge path within an hour or so after the big waterfall.

I wouldn’t describe it as a “fantastic” stream encouraging many re-visits :), but hopefully you’ll find this info useful if you decide to visit again.