Seorak Mountain Hike

This weekend is Chuseok (9/10-9/13), and the majority of Korea goes to visit their family as part of the tradition. Chuseok is a celebration of the end of the harvest season. For me, this means I get a four day weekend! Nice ... So, I decided to visit Seorak National Park as it was highly recommended by the official Korean Visitor's website. Because the park is so large, it requires an overnight trip, at the very least, in order to see some of the park.This made it all the more interesting to me. I wasn't looking for the smokey glass bus tour of Korea. I wanted to experience Korea.

Thus with a few cans of spam, tuna, rice bowls, vitamin water packets, an el-cheap-o sleeping bag (that still stuck me in the wallet), and one change of clothes, I left Friday night after work. Oh yeah, I also left with no reservations for a hotel (for when I arrived at Sokcho at 12:30am) or the shelters that are a-long the trail. The shelters are also the only place you are allowed to 'camp' at. I also 'left' my list of translated sentences that was supposed to help me. So, ya know, I felt prepared ... eh, NBD. Life's an adventure ... might as well make it a really good adventure!! Somehow, I did leave still feeling that everything was going to work out. Korea is just kool like that. Anyway, cut to the chase, I am back at the apt. blogging and the only regret I have is that I couldn't have stayed longer! It was a true blessing.

Night One:
I arrived at Sokcho at 12:30 am. Sokcho is a city on the East Sea side of Korea and it is near the entrance to the park. I found a nearby hotel which was only $30 a night and it was still a nice place to stay. I left the window open to enjoy the ocean air, but in the middle of the night, I heard the most spine chilling animal noise.   It sounded like it was on the window sill. Like other times while camping and being freaked the blazes out of me,  I quickly narrowed it down to some sort of ginormous bug. Of course, I was thinking of some sort of deadly spider that screeches like a banshee before for it attacks you and slowly sucks your insides out. Thus breaking the heavy chains of fear gripping me like stone to my bed, I raced to window sill like my life depended on it and closed it from behind the window curtains. I half expect to have my hand chewed off when I brought it back in. I quickly went back to sleep coming from the adrenaline rush. I will never know what that animal, bug, whatever was but I will never want to know.

Day One (11.5 km):
I caught the bus from Sokcho to the Park's entrance. Here are a couple video's of the bus trip.

Here is a map of Seorak National Park. You might want to open this in another window just for a reference. 

I first went to Biryeong Falls which is a side trip from the main trail. It starts at the park's entrance. The myth behind the falls is that one year a terrible drought had plagued the people below the falls because there was no water flowing from the river. The people found out that a dragon had stopped the flow of river from above the falls. To appease the dragon, they sacrificed a virgin woman to to the dragon at the pool below the falls. So anyway, it's a very beautiful hike.

The pictures are below but these as well as the rest of the pictures I will post are nothing like what it is being there. It is absolutely incredible at every turn. Just absolutely amazing everywhere you look and these pictures make it look horrible in comparison. It was just mind boggling how beautiful the entire park was. Just beyond words. Absolutely fabulous and that was with it constantly pouring rain at every second. I will definitely be returning when I know there will be good weather.

My great outfit ... I was actually really grateful, later, that I overcame my pride and went with the trash bag coat and Crocodile Dundee combo outfit. 

"Albert!!! Quit eating those chipmunks!!! You have to save them for the grandkids!!"

I'm thinking of a movie where they are running through a cage walkway like this and everyone is about to get eaten ... hmmm... 

You will notice that some of the top branches are not branches but other trees on top of the mountain. 

And this is when the spider crawled onto my hand when I was about to take a picture ... 

     This next set of pictures is going from the park's entrance to my first nights stop at Huiungak Shelter. I took the path through the Cheonbuldong Valley.

I think this would happen only once in a millennium.

 Pedro: "I think she had a good time or something" ... lol

I named this Dragon Tree...

Night Two:
I stayed at Huiungak Shelter and it was a great experience. Like I said, I didn't have reservations, but because of the steady rain, there was only a fraction of the people that there is normally. I met four other American teachers on the trail, and when we came to the shelter, they decided to hike to the next one. No one had cancelled at that point, but I felt that I would have better chances than if I tagged along with the other four who also had not made previous arrangements. Soon, someone did cancel and I was able to change from my water laden clothing into my other warm dry clothes thanks to my plastic garbage bag coat. It actually was  a plastic coat with a good and all but it just makes you look like a garbage bag, lol. The sleeping quarters were an experience. There was two sides of three levels of bunk bed like wood sleeping areas. There were about nine people to a level. It isn't like you have a bed you have a section of the fancy looking plywood that is yours to sleep on. They manager was nice enough to give me a section that was long enough for me to stretch out without my feet dangling off the end. Each section was about three by six and a half feet long. My section didn't have the bench at the head of the sleeping area. While it was hard to find a comfortable position to sleep on, I was very grateful that I wasn't having to sleep under the overhang area of the shelter. Although it would have been kinda dry, it would have been miserable. It was very warm inside and even a little too warm at times and of course ... MY HEAD WAS DOWNHILL!!! My dad basically sleeps on a hill when we would go camping so that he could breath better through his nose, and  so I always joke around with him about that. Despite that, it was an awesome experience to feel like I was almost Korean myself being in the middle of their routine. It was also an enlightening experience because I noticed that everyone has the same routine like everyone back home. While the food, language, and some other quarky to me habits were different (like setting the alarm for 1am), overall it was just humans doing what humans do. Eat, shoot the breeze, chill, get ready for bed, watch some downloaded vids on the iphone, and then go to sleep. I guess it was a 'human' experience and it made me feel a lot closer to home. Well, I might have felt that way if everyone wasn't staring at me as if to say, "They actually make 'lizards' that look like you?" Everyone was very curious to know what the only American who looks like the wonder bread devil was doing in a Korean camping shelter out in the middle of no where in Korea, lol. At least I didn't say, "Howdy ya'll, what'ch ya'll cook'n. Ya eat that them there squirm'n gook? Well, gollll-lee." I believe that would have exaggerated the awareness of my presence, lol.

Speaking of cooking, a Korean man noticed that I was eating alone and so he came over to me and tried to have a conversation with me as best as he could with his broken English. It wasn't that he wanted to talk to me. Rather, it was that he wanted to make sure that I didn't feel alone. This was a priceless gift to me. I didn't really feel alone because I was just thinking about getting up the next day and having to put those soggy wet and cold clothes back on. However, his act of kindness towards me warmed my heart and helped me have a better life focus. I mean, think about it. He didn't really know English. He doesn't have a clue of who I am other than that I might not be from any Asian country. He crossed every psychological barrier in order to see that another human beings basic needs were met. Absolutely amazing. Now, I have found that in Korean society, it is seen as a very bad thing to be alone just because everything you do is with someone. So to live alone means that something is not right in over all sub-conscience of Korean people. However, this act was far beyond a reaction to fear. It was truly a priceless and honest gift that came with no strings attached. I will never meet the man again or will ever be able to repay him. However, if in the future I find myself back in the majority, I will understand the importance of reaching out to that one person who doesn't belong in the 'pack' just to make sure his basic human needs are met. Like I said, everything about this trip was absolutely beyond words (well ... that's kind of an oxymoron since I won't shut-up, lol)

Day Two (~22.3km or 13.8 miles):

This was near the summit of Socheongbong which is on the way to Deacheongbong. It was raining even more on Sunday than Saturday.

This is the summit of Daecheongbong which is the tallest peak in the park (1708m or ~5,603ft). 

As you can see, the white spots are rain drops. The puddles are from rain collected within the 20 minuets it took to summit the mountain from Jungcheong Shelter. When I left from this shelter, it was lightly raining, but near the summit, it began to literally rain a stream of water. The path turned into a stream that you had to walk back down in. It was an insane amount of water. 

Bongjeongam Temple ... Very kool!!

 On the way down from Bongjeongam Temple to Suryeomdong Shelter. This was another incredible section of the park. This picture is another of the park's trail/stream bed paths which because of the rain was being utilized as a stream.

This was on the descent from Madeungryeong pass to Biseondae. This was the hardest section of the hike. From Oseam temple to Biseondae, it was a trail of rock steps from either someone who laid the steps down or from boulders utilized as steps. It was exhausting especially after traveling for so long, and my knees were really gripping after awhile on the way down. I had really contemplated staying at Oseam temple, but I found out that my pack and sleeping bag had gotten damp from all the rain even under plastic. Water has its ways... So, I figured the pain of hiking out the four miles was less pain than sleeping in damp everything and catching pneumonia. I was comfortable temperature wise as long as I kept moving. About five minuets after anytime I would stop, the damp and cold would set in. However, I didn't realize that the four miles was a mile of hiking up the mountain to the pass another mile of hiking a precarious ridge line among the massive spires of rock and then a mile descent to the river. It was still worth hiking out that day, and when I go back, I will have a better idea of what and how to plan my next trip to Seorak.