Our final day was spent hiking Hallasan, the highest mountain in South Korea. At a whopping 1,950 meters tall (that's 6,398 feet, children), this mountain takes around 8 hours to successfully hike. The problem with the day we chose (our final day, as mentioned before) is that it was rife with rain...the entire day. Something that is very bizarre about Korean hiking trails is how manicured they are. They include rock paths and wooden boardwalks and staircases...
...the whole way up the mountain. However, on this day a majority of our path looked more like a cascading waterfall:
We were smart enough to purchase stylish trashbag smocks to protect our precious clothing.
These smocks failed on that front. In fact, the smocks did such a poor job that, despite having gone through the wash (ah, my incredible washing machine...), my jeans still retain some semblence of that hike. That is to say, Hallasan rain smells like magic...if you believe magic smells like onions and sulfur. And I do. So, I sometimes opt to wear my onion sulfur pants out on the town and scare the locals even more than normal.
About 2/3 of the way up, there is a shop selling ramen, candy bars, and water to refuel the wary hikers (surprisingly [I'm serious about the surprise part...] no beer or soju). I can only imagine the time the shop owner has every morning, hiking 2 hours up a mountain (perhaps with boxes of ramen in tow) to open the shop rain or shine. Actually, it dawned in my mind that there was perhaps a secret road out back, and that we should have taken that back down instead of enduring the cascading waterfall.
Now for the tale of the summit. Once we passed the tree line (about 1/2 hour from the top), the climate changed so dramatically that it's hard to even express. The temperature dropped dramatically, the wind increased at least ten fold--enough that one could not stand up straight--and the rain shot in sideways strong enough to sting quite a bit. I could not hear or get a sense of equilibrium through that majestic smock. It was easily the hardest wind/rain combination I'd ever been in. After climbing up stairs for 3 1/2 hours, it was not the greatest feeling. But, we endured to the top and were rewarded with these spectacular views of the island:
...ugh. Well, here's a picture of the summit in the rain and wind (which was somehow not quite as strong as about ten feet below the summit):
The way down was when I began to feel the effects of the way up. By the time we reached the base lodge, I could hardly walk. What hurt the most was my feet. Word of advice: don't wear Chuck Taylor All-Stars on a rocky mountain hike (tap the Rockies!). You'll regret it for at least 3 or 4 days afterward. However, it's kind of tradition now that my Chuck Taylors go with me on mountain hikes so I'll next be climbing Kilamanjaro and K-2 with them.
Anyway, at the bottom we ceremoniously flipped Hallasan the bird and considered it conquered. Take that.
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