LEO LO MAN-KUK'S brand of hiking isn't for the fainthearted. While exploring Lantau's Yellow Dragon River with two friends, a storm erupted in the hills north of Sunset Peak. It was getting dark and the heavy rains quickly caused the river to overflow, catching Lo and his friends unawares. Visibility was poor. Each had to grab hold of a tree to avoid being swept away.
'We stayed up all night,' says Lo, a technology consultant. 'If we had fallen asleep, we would have fallen into the river. The water flushed away our food. I had no map, no compass. All of it was washed away. We thought we were going to die.'
But the rain eased in the morning, and the hikers eventually found their way out.
Groups such as Lo's are an alternative kind of grass-roots organisation. Residents who value Hong Kong's natural landscape over its skyline, they're keen to share their knowledge. They offer more in-depth information than government programmes, which generally stick to well-worn trails.
'Hong Kong is small, but it has some amazing mountain landscape to explore,' says Lo. 'In China or the US if you want to explore some remote area it will take you one or two days just for travel. But in Hong Kong it's just two hours on public transport. You can find some exotic, very remote, very dangerous places if you want to.'