Day 40: Ragged sleep, woke early - hung round waiting for opening. Used the radiator to dry clothes. Met another older hiker who very generously shouted us breakfast and coffee. He made his money in finance, now trekking all over the world. Extreme white-out again - 20 m visibility. First 12 km on a 4wd track, wind turbines swooping out of the fog. Second half was a closed section. Rain began, wet, overgrown trail in your face. Lost Ki-Jun for 2 hours but followed the hard-core Daeganers' lead once more. Past security cameras, fences, even bloody razor wire, but always a ribbon to keep you on track! No one else around, no view, just walking to cover ground. Closed hyugeso waiting - great! 2nd consecutive night on the porch, rain coming down. Hobo's helm. Shifted on by the owner in the morning. That's enough. Let's get out of here! Taxi down to 진부면, set up in a motel to dry and wash gear. Never fun leaving the ridge but no point walking in the rain again. 95 km over 4 days anyway.
Day 41: Hung out again - just want to get this thing over now. Closed sections ahead which Ki-Jun wants to do. We couldn't care less and just want to move on but what the hell - we're in it together now.
Day 42: Enlightening day really. Caught the bus out of town then secured a beautiful hitch to the pass in the tray of a flat-bed truck. Put us in great spirits - beautiful weather - sky was washed after 3 days constant rain - sunny and clear. Walked a closed section but didn't seem patrolled - 22 km - knee feels great, inside 100 km now. Forest was mostly cool and green tunnels, with big views through the trees. Bigger country now and it feels so much nicer being higher and more remote, a little wilder. Breathing seems easier, plans for the future come streaming in, doubts surface less often. Maybe it's taken this long to clear my head.
Day 43: Camped at the rear of an old hyugeso. Awoke to the fog streaming in again. Gangwondo is really not coming to the party weather-wise. Cloud turned to misty, dripping forest - overgrown trails and slippery mud. Loving it. Camped at a damp and foggy spot in the forest after 15km to rest Squire's ankle. Made a fire and hit the tent early. Wet-sleeping bag paranoia.
Day 44: Damp morning, plan was 21 km but flew through the course as Squire's ankle was 3 pain-killers fine. Wonderful, wet-dripping head-high foliage soaked us within 30 minutes. Waited an hour for Ki-Jun to arrive to lunch, he battled his mind, trying to decide to complete the upcoming so-called 'dangerous' section. Coffee and ramyeon tipped the balance - we walked on, aiming for 함계령, 13 km away. The weather was clear above 1100 m, and sweet vista's appeared to boost our spirits. The craggy peaks of Seoraksan rising above the fog-line sweeping in off the East Sea were welcome relief from the green tunnel. A ropey, rocky descent followed and even a quick siphon 1km from the finish couldn't phase us. We pumped up the road in the gloom, stoked, happy and loving the blazing lights of the open 휴게서! One of our best sleeping options yet - a caretaker's tool tent attached to the toilet block. Lay down on a pile of cardboard and ignored the wafting sewer, happy to be dry and stoked to have a roof over our heads.
Day 45: Up early to vacate our quarters. Still misty and murky. Another bibimbap and more gwaja for breakfast. Easy sort of day up to the mountain shelter, mostly uphill and again nice views above the fog. Seoraksan is actually very beautiful, full of amazing rock spires and granite slabs too steep even for the most adventurous Pinus koreanus (extremely hardy Korean pine tree). Struggled to stay in the BD zone, letting the mind wander. Ki-Jun is starting to niggle us - but the problem is really due to me being tired, last days impatience and the constant language barrier frustrations. Come evening there were beautiful views out over Seorak, islands jutting above the fog. Chanting from the temple below rose up valley, the notes twisting and swirling with the fog, filling us with a gentle calm. My thoughts began drifting toward the finish line. Bracing for the last big push tomorrow, for the final campsite. Bring it! One last march to victory.
Day 46: Well f**k you Daegan - you almost broke me. What a rough gig. To start with the weather was most foul and unnatural. To second with the trail was painstakingly slow, as we walked the dinosaur's spine - a famous section in Seoraksan that traverses an amazing section of ridge promising soaring outcrops of naked granite and views through to the mysterious North Korea.
But yeah, saw none of that!
Again we were enveloped in the cold swirling fog. Actually I didn't mind it by now, numb to my fate and happy just to keep plodding and daydreaming about coming back and climbing some of these amazing pinnacles. That was until we drifted into another siphon, probably the worst yet. Basically we started walking another closed section, quickly lost the trail in the white-out conditions, scrabbled for half an hour down an incredibly steep and overgrown trail, only to come out at a well-made staircase that signaled we had actually come in the complete opposite direction.
My mind cut lose!
I was really rattled, rarked up and riled, raging that we even had to walk these sections in this pure shite weather. I raced to plot my escape down the valley and around to the next pass by road. I simply didn't want to walk back up that staircase, along another overgrown trail. Having already eaten my sugar rations for the day I was gwaja-less and reeling. This after 45 days on the trail and not 25 km from the end.
It was pure poison.
Squire, having already realised his fate, had started to plod back up the stairs. Naturally my wild mind latched onto this action and vented it's fury. That prick, making me go back up there, stronger in will than I and resigning me to this walk. Then to the weather - why won't it stop f'ing raining, is a bit of dry too much to ask for? Then to Ki-Jun for driving us to walk these stupid closed sections. Amazingly juvenile stuff, yet impossible to staunch the tirade.
Externalising rage when things don't go my way, like in this situation, is exactly what I'm trying to unlearn through meditation - but at this moment I was uncontrollable. Shut up, just keep walking, keep walking, just observe - eventually this will go away. And it did - but it took at least 2 hours to fully drop that moment, as the Daegan tossed up some large, knee-jarring granite boulder scree slopes that were atrociously wet and steep, followed by more enclosed, unmarked and overgrown trail. Completely over the day I stormed ahead, recklessly not looking at the map to confirm if I was on the trail, determined to plough through and end this once and for all. The track I was on for all the world felt like a siphon - I couldn't have cared less where I turned up.
Anyway, one last waist-high tunnel later I stumbled out of the mist onto the pass. Thank God for that. It's over. Not! Apparently there is ranger danger here, as the track is closed both sides of the pass. I crept around the old hyugeso carpark, quickly becoming colder and more paranoid. What looked like uniformed men were walking around the sight in official manner. I ducked across the entrance and hid in the bushes briefly, laughing to myself now at the sheer outrageous-ness of the situation - sorry, what am I doing here again??! Employing skills learned in the countless backyard spy-sagas of my youth, I stealthily edged back to the exit point and suddenly heard voices. Yuss! Must be another couple of die-hard Daeganers lying low, also waiting for the rangers to leave. I edged toward the noise and almost screamed, as two Korean soldiers materialised before me, sitting casually in a foxhole with weapons lying beside. I don't know who got the bigger fright. One of them thrust a stick of candy at me. I threw out some panicky Korean, trying to act like this was a completely run-of-the-mill encounter. The game was up and I was ready to surrender. But as it turned out they were just training in the area, not unusual as it is so close to the border with the north. As the convo rapidly died, I edged away, searching for my next hiding place. Then, a whistle from above. Looking up I saw with relief the shadows of Mark and Ki-Jun on the bank above me, signalling if it was okay to comedown? What the hell, I didn't really know but they arrived anyway, and we walked into the car-park to see that the 'rangers' were just more soldiers getting ready to leave. Jeeeez! What an ordeal, what a day.
The hyugeso was derelict and there was no dry land in sight. So, not 15 km from the end we dropped off the ridge once more, again foiled by the weather.
To be honest the boys got over it pretty quickly!
The coastal city of Sokcho was only 20 km away so we called a taxi and within half an hour were gorging ourselves in a local restaurant, finishing the day in the hot-tub of a local jimjilbang. Genius Korea.
Just another insane day on the Daegan!
Day 41: Hung out again - just want to get this thing over now. Closed sections ahead which Ki-Jun wants to do. We couldn't care less and just want to move on but what the hell - we're in it together now.
Day 42: Enlightening day really. Caught the bus out of town then secured a beautiful hitch to the pass in the tray of a flat-bed truck. Put us in great spirits - beautiful weather - sky was washed after 3 days constant rain - sunny and clear. Walked a closed section but didn't seem patrolled - 22 km - knee feels great, inside 100 km now. Forest was mostly cool and green tunnels, with big views through the trees. Bigger country now and it feels so much nicer being higher and more remote, a little wilder. Breathing seems easier, plans for the future come streaming in, doubts surface less often. Maybe it's taken this long to clear my head.
Day 44: Damp morning, plan was 21 km but flew through the course as Squire's ankle was 3 pain-killers fine. Wonderful, wet-dripping head-high foliage soaked us within 30 minutes. Waited an hour for Ki-Jun to arrive to lunch, he battled his mind, trying to decide to complete the upcoming so-called 'dangerous' section. Coffee and ramyeon tipped the balance - we walked on, aiming for 함계령, 13 km away. The weather was clear above 1100 m, and sweet vista's appeared to boost our spirits. The craggy peaks of Seoraksan rising above the fog-line sweeping in off the East Sea were welcome relief from the green tunnel. A ropey, rocky descent followed and even a quick siphon 1km from the finish couldn't phase us. We pumped up the road in the gloom, stoked, happy and loving the blazing lights of the open 휴게서! One of our best sleeping options yet - a caretaker's tool tent attached to the toilet block. Lay down on a pile of cardboard and ignored the wafting sewer, happy to be dry and stoked to have a roof over our heads.
Day 46: Well f**k you Daegan - you almost broke me. What a rough gig. To start with the weather was most foul and unnatural. To second with the trail was painstakingly slow, as we walked the dinosaur's spine - a famous section in Seoraksan that traverses an amazing section of ridge promising soaring outcrops of naked granite and views through to the mysterious North Korea.
But yeah, saw none of that!
Again we were enveloped in the cold swirling fog. Actually I didn't mind it by now, numb to my fate and happy just to keep plodding and daydreaming about coming back and climbing some of these amazing pinnacles. That was until we drifted into another siphon, probably the worst yet. Basically we started walking another closed section, quickly lost the trail in the white-out conditions, scrabbled for half an hour down an incredibly steep and overgrown trail, only to come out at a well-made staircase that signaled we had actually come in the complete opposite direction.
My mind cut lose!
I was really rattled, rarked up and riled, raging that we even had to walk these sections in this pure shite weather. I raced to plot my escape down the valley and around to the next pass by road. I simply didn't want to walk back up that staircase, along another overgrown trail. Having already eaten my sugar rations for the day I was gwaja-less and reeling. This after 45 days on the trail and not 25 km from the end.
It was pure poison.
Squire, having already realised his fate, had started to plod back up the stairs. Naturally my wild mind latched onto this action and vented it's fury. That prick, making me go back up there, stronger in will than I and resigning me to this walk. Then to the weather - why won't it stop f'ing raining, is a bit of dry too much to ask for? Then to Ki-Jun for driving us to walk these stupid closed sections. Amazingly juvenile stuff, yet impossible to staunch the tirade.
Externalising rage when things don't go my way, like in this situation, is exactly what I'm trying to unlearn through meditation - but at this moment I was uncontrollable. Shut up, just keep walking, keep walking, just observe - eventually this will go away. And it did - but it took at least 2 hours to fully drop that moment, as the Daegan tossed up some large, knee-jarring granite boulder scree slopes that were atrociously wet and steep, followed by more enclosed, unmarked and overgrown trail. Completely over the day I stormed ahead, recklessly not looking at the map to confirm if I was on the trail, determined to plough through and end this once and for all. The track I was on for all the world felt like a siphon - I couldn't have cared less where I turned up.
Anyway, one last waist-high tunnel later I stumbled out of the mist onto the pass. Thank God for that. It's over. Not! Apparently there is ranger danger here, as the track is closed both sides of the pass. I crept around the old hyugeso carpark, quickly becoming colder and more paranoid. What looked like uniformed men were walking around the sight in official manner. I ducked across the entrance and hid in the bushes briefly, laughing to myself now at the sheer outrageous-ness of the situation - sorry, what am I doing here again??! Employing skills learned in the countless backyard spy-sagas of my youth, I stealthily edged back to the exit point and suddenly heard voices. Yuss! Must be another couple of die-hard Daeganers lying low, also waiting for the rangers to leave. I edged toward the noise and almost screamed, as two Korean soldiers materialised before me, sitting casually in a foxhole with weapons lying beside. I don't know who got the bigger fright. One of them thrust a stick of candy at me. I threw out some panicky Korean, trying to act like this was a completely run-of-the-mill encounter. The game was up and I was ready to surrender. But as it turned out they were just training in the area, not unusual as it is so close to the border with the north. As the convo rapidly died, I edged away, searching for my next hiding place. Then, a whistle from above. Looking up I saw with relief the shadows of Mark and Ki-Jun on the bank above me, signalling if it was okay to comedown? What the hell, I didn't really know but they arrived anyway, and we walked into the car-park to see that the 'rangers' were just more soldiers getting ready to leave. Jeeeez! What an ordeal, what a day.
The hyugeso was derelict and there was no dry land in sight. So, not 15 km from the end we dropped off the ridge once more, again foiled by the weather.
To be honest the boys got over it pretty quickly!
The coastal city of Sokcho was only 20 km away so we called a taxi and within half an hour were gorging ourselves in a local restaurant, finishing the day in the hot-tub of a local jimjilbang. Genius Korea.
Just another insane day on the Daegan!
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| Foggy Stuff |
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| Cornflakes and Gwaja in Sokcho - 1 day out from finish |
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