Taroko Marble 3

This is another closeup of a two hundred million year old masterpiece created by formosan coral. For information on the origin of this magnum opus, read my earlier post, Legacy.

Molar River

The Atayal people are the first known human settlers of Taroko Gorge. They named this river Shakadang, which means molar tooth in their language, because it is full of large white marble boulders that resemble the teeth we use for eating carrots.

I scrambled over many of these dental rocks to get to the deep turquoise pools surrounding the particularly large molar in this photo. The photo in my previous post shows the furthest point I was able to reach downstream before I had to put my camera down and dive in.

The water of the Shakadang is impossibly refreshing. There is only one word that can fully describe its awesomeness: 爽! The pronunciation of this Chinese word may be closely approximated with the Romanization, shuang, if one pays attention to its intonation. The speaker’s pitch must first descend from the sh into the ua diphthong until it resonates deep in the chest. Then it must swing upward through the ng in an exaltant finish. Uttered too casually, shuang, can be mildly dirty word. But when used appropriately, e.g. surfacing after diving headfirst into an icy blue-green mountain river, it is safe for the ears of children and grandmas. And that’s exactly how I used it.

I laughed loudly as I swam through the brilliantly lucid waters, overwhelmed by the magnificent beauty of Taroko Gorge. I stopped to tread water a moment and noticed that little fishes were following me. When I reached my hands out to catch them, they nibbled at my fingertips. They were probably looking for a snack but it felt like fish-kisses to me. This sent me once again floating on my back with laughter.

My attention turned to the large marble molar boulder sitting plunk in the middle of the swimming hole. It stretched about ten feet out of the water and probably just as many under. I swam around it looking for the best route to climb up. There were plenty of handholds above the water but nearly everything bellow had been polished smooth by the Shakadang and made even more slick by a coat of algae. My arms soon became exhausted trying to pull my body up the cool smooth stone. Without a proper place to plant even one foot, all my attempts at reaching the top ended with me falling back into the river. I laid down on a sandy bank on the other side of the river, resting, reminding myself that I was climbing for climbing’s sake -- not to conquer or prove anything but to feel the of satisfaction of being fully present.

After breathing some more energy into my tired arms I slipped back into the water and swam to the boulders leftmost edge. I placed my hands on some familiar holds and began to probe the depths again for a foothold. As the toes of my left foot scuttled across the smooth surface they discovered a small indentation, just big enough for my big toe. Hugging the rock as tightly as I could, I pushed myself up out of the water and quickly found a higher hold for my right hand. I lifted my right foot out of the water and placed it on a small ledge but nearly slipped off the moment I put some weight on that union between wet toes and smooth marble. So I clung to the rock like a lizard in the sun, waiting for my hands and feet to dry. When I felt I could hold that position no longer I found another hold for my right foot, then my left hand, then my left foot. From there it felt like a ladder had been carved into the stone and I was sitting on the top in just a few steps.

I sat atop the molar, eyes lightly closed, breathing in the fantastic world around me. A deep tranquility washed over my soul. I opened my eyes, walked to the edge of the boulder, and threw myself back into the Shakadang.

爽！

Legacy

Two hundred million years ago, formosan corals constructed vast reefs upon the ocean floor that would one day become the island of Taiwan. Colonies of polyps rose and fell, building their calcite castles upon the ruins of their predecessors. The weight of each successive generation pressed the sedimentary remnants of their ancestors into the ocean floor, cementing their colorful history in layers of smokey white limestone.

Several epochs later, the collision between two titanic chunks of the earth's crust, the Eurasian and the Philippine Sea tectonic plates, thrust Taiwan up from the ocean floor and into the atmosphere. The force from this colossal impact metamorphized Taiwan's limestone foundation into swirling orange, azure, and white marble. This marble lay locked in the heart of Taiwan's jagged mountains until the turquoise waters of the Shakadang River carved it out, revealing the legacy of the formosan corals.

Marveling at the color and form of this rock I cannot help but wonder about the metamorphosis from coral to marble. What was the coral before it was coral? What will it be after it is marble? What were we before we were we? What will our legacy be?