A big, long hike up a mountain

A misty, early morning.
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Next morning, after a not too bad sleep it was up with the birds and outside to where a breakfast camp fire was burning.

Seok-jin was setting up the breakfast tables with a toaster, juice, fruit, peanut butter!! and (best of all...) a filter coffee machine. Seeing as it was a nice morning, although incredibly cold, I thought Id make the most of it and took the 5 minute walk to the waterfall. We'd been to have a look at it the night before but it had been getting too dusky for photographs, so I went quickly before breakfast.

We were determined not to be out-puffed by a small Korean child..

A ghostly waterfall.
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There's something about eating food outdoors around a campfire that can make it taste so much more exotic. White bread toast with peanut butter and jam isn't all that remarkable, but on a frosty morning around a campfire it tasted divine. After breakfast we all gathered in the big cabin room to make our picnic lunch. No sandwiches for us, this was Korean style picnic lunch so we were going to make Kimbap. To do this, you need one square of kim (seaweed), take a good helping of bap(rice) and squash it out over the seaweed. Next, take the strips of filling, radish, carrot, cucumber etc and place along the middle. You then need to roll the kimbap into a big sausage shape and then it is cut into slices. And eat..

More ghostliness
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So, picnic ready, bags packed, fully fed, we got back into the bus for the short trip down the road to our starting point for the hike. It was almost the perfect day for it. The sun was out and it was a crystal clear blue sky. It was actually quite cold but that wasn't going to matter once we'd started walking. We did a quick warm up of a few star jumps and started off up the road.

We were going to be heading for the highest peak in the park. Once we'd reached the peak (taking the difficult route....) we would stop for lunch, then make our way along the ridge and take the easy (phew) way down. Seok-jin reckoned he could make it to the top in 90 minutes, but for us it would take about 3 hours.... uh-oh, it sounded hard!!

Early morning frost
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Well, we started the hike which became a scramble which rapidly turned into a scramble... For the first half an hour it was a steep brackeny path, quite unrelenting. A Korean family (friends of the adventure camp manager) had joined us on the bus; a couple and their 2 children. We were all using their small boy as a marker. If he kept going, we kept going. We were determined not to be out-puffed by a small Korean child.. The higher we got, the more rocky the walk became. And actually more interesting as a hike. The rocks were uneven and scraggy or steep so it was more than mere plodding, you did feel as if you were climbing up and over something. And the views became more and more spectacular. Autumn in Korea is a lot of people's favourite season. Many Koreans will advise a trip to one of the bigger nature parks to see the foliage changing colour. For months Korea has been a myriad of greens. The mountains are densely packed with every variation of green that you can imagine and now the trees are turning autumnal and the russets, ochres, golds, burnt colours are emerging everywhere. It truly is beautiful and we got a good glimpse of this as we traipsed our way up to the first summit.

Making Kimbap - before the rolling
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As we neared the top some of the rocks became more tricky. Some were practically sheer faced and we needed the help of ropes to climb them. It seemed a little ironic that the day before we had been helmeted and harnessed onto the hillside path rope walk (that wasn't next to too steep a drop) and today we were helmet & harness free trying to descend sheer drops or inch around paths that were maybe a foot wide while not looking at the sheer drop below us... all the while Seok-Jin was assuring us that no-one had ever died on one of his trips.. it sounds good now, but then it was hollow comfort!

Me making the kimbap for my lunch
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Finally we reached a level section where we stopped for lunch and boy, did homemade kimbap ever taste so good. We had a fantastic view of a neighbouring rock face and it was only while we had the time to sit and wonder at it, we noticed the tiny moving blobs at the bottom of it were climbers. What a way to spend your Sunday afternoon... Lunch over, it was back to it and what we had thought was the top wasn't, we had reached the ridge. The next hour or so was spent huffing our way up and down over more rocks, sliding down more ropes and for some of us taking the "easier but longer way" round a rock when our stomachs and nerves couldn't take any more sheer face drops.

At the start. We are heading for the peaks in the distance
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And then, Hurrah!, we made it to the top... red faced, thirsty and stiff legged.. only to be met by hundred of fresh faced Korean oldies on a Sunday day out. All sitting around cross legged enjoying their kimchi and kimbap picnics. There was lots of smiling and nodding and laughing (on their part, presumably at the out of shape weigooks) who were showing the effects of exertion, whilst they looked as fresh faced as if they'd stepped of a tour bus 50m down the track. So after an obligatory photo session with the summit marker we had an appointment with the bus driver.

Catching persimmon from the trees
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Going down the mountain was to be a MUCH quicker affair, as cunningly there was an easy route. Unfortunately not a cable car or mountain train but a path with no rocks, no ropes, no sneaky ledges, just a steep hill going downwards. Getting to the top took almost 4 hours. It took maybe 30-40 minutes to get to the bottom... The path emerged from the mountain quite convienently into a car park complete with rest room and snack bar, exactly what was needed after such a work out.

The bus was waiting, raring to go and desperate to avoid Korean weekend travel, so almost as soon as the last person down was watered, toileted and snacked up we set off back to our respective drop off points for the journey home.