The Tsaoling Trail is one of the popular hiking routes in the northeastern Taiwan. when north direction railway transportation became available in 1979, large number of visitors used this trail for recraction actions ,those actions are cause from much impacts on the vegetation and soil of the areas. The objectives of this study are to monitor and assess the impacts of hiking on the ground vegetation and soil, and to make a management approaches for the sustainable recreation Two major indicators of vegetation disturbance, the cover reduction (CR) and floristic dissimilarity (FD), are used in this research, in addition to soil hardness increase (SHI) which were obtained monitored monthly from 2001 to 2002. The results are: 1. The ground vegetation cover was significantly reduced, and the soil of the flag stone paved trail within 2 meter on each side was significantly compacted, particularly in of the segments at Hsiungchengmanyan,(雄鎮蠻煙) Hutsepei,(虎 字碑) and Liao junsou(老榕樹). The segments of dawnhill path were less serious impacted, then the Tali temple segment. In general, the impacts on the trail at the summer typhoon period and off season were slightly reduced. 2. The impacts on the ground vegetation and soil were closely correlated with the flux of visitors. Width of the trail and hardness of the soil are the important factors. 3. The cover reduction (CR), floristic dissimilarity (FD), andindex of vegetation impact (IVI) can be used to evaluate the impacts of hiking on the Tsaoling trail. 4. The percentage of vegetation cover of the trail is suggested as an indicator to the limit of acceptable change (LAC). Based on a consensus search among the visitors and the managing staff, the LAC of 55% coverage an acceptable criterion.