The Incline Hong Kong style – the best stair climbs and hikes
- Train on some of Hong Kong’s toughest stair climbs, in a city full of hikes that will burn your quads
The popular video ‘The Incline’, showing a brutal stair climb in Colorado, got the Hong Kong community talking. What is our answer to the famous set of stairs? The set in Manitou Springs, Colorado, has become a mecca for their trail running community. First-time hikers see it as a rite of passage and fitness fanatics scale it multiple times a day.
Hikes all across Hong Kong are packed with stair climbs. Here are some of the hardest, physically and mentally. Perhaps, as trail running grows in popularity, one of these inclines will become Hong Kong’s leg-burning church as it has for the Colorado folk.
The Twins
Undoubtedly, the set of stairs that strikes the most fear into runners and hikers is on The Twins, on section one of the Wilson Trail. If you do the section in reverse, starting from Park View, you will see the straight line ascending up the mammoth hill as you come down Violet Hill. It is an unrelenting 1,000 steps. It is covered, so there are no views to distract you and it feels like it never ends, but it does. It is the perfect training as it is close to Hong Kong Island's populated centres, so you don’t have to travel far. It is tough, but in reality it does not take that long, so you can train and still have time for other activities in your day.
The top trail runners do it in under 10 minutes, but do not measure yourself against these athletic freaks. Try first to keep moving non-stop and build from there. Make it even more challenging by starting from Quarry Bay and heading up to Mt Parker. By the time you start the dreaded Twin, you would have already completed several climbs.
Needle Hill