Busan to Seoul

So we left Busan by bus and headed to Taebaek to do, what we thought would be one of our most greuling hikes yet. Taebaek is the highest city in all of Korea. The weather report said that Taebaek would be -8 C @ the city. The mountain would be a lot colder. There is supposed to be a winter festival here and they are holding a guiness book event, the largest snowball fight ever.

When arriving we saw the city was getting prepared and lit up for the festival times. Our first task was to look around and get a sense of the cost of lodging, from there we could make the choice as to whether it was worth it to camp or not.

We ended up deciding to camp out the night and we hiked into the woods behind some condo's. We followed a frozen stream bed up the mountain. We kept passing these large mounts of what looked like snow covered hay sitting in the middle of these cleared out areas. We hiked as far as the trail would take us and then some, wanting to get out of view of the city.

We didn't manage to get far enough away for us to have a fire so we ended up cooking over our pocket rocket (butane burner) and went to sleep. In the morning when there was a bit more light we realized that all the mounds we had been passing must have been grave sites. Some had headstones and flowers by them. Nothing like sleeping at the foot of a grave to insight a good nights sleep. (Good thing we didn't know at the time - In the picture my pack is resting right on the headstone.). After silently apologizing to... whomever we walked back to the town to start heading for the mountain.

When we finally arrived at the mountain we were expecting an out of the way mountain freezing cold with only game trails to follow. Well we got the freezing cold right. At the base we could see them starting to set up for the festival and getting some of the snow sculptures in place. There was a line of people heading up the mountain and as we followed we soon found out that our "epic hike" was basically a day hike for the locals. About 600 meters up the path there were hordes of them having a picnic.

Regardless of how many people there were the further up we went the less we saw. We were on this mountain to live for a while so the closer to dark it got the less people were there as well. By the time we got to the peak I had shed my clothes down to a single nylon pants and a tee shirt. BTW -7 C is 20 F. Some of the other hikers were wanting to take pictures with us on the way up. The view at the peak was a amazing. These pictures to little to convey the beauty that we beheld.

The peak of the mountain was windy with an ice needle cold, enough to make you lean into it. It reminded me of my childhood in Greatfalls where everyone walked with a slant.

We back tracked down the path to a flat area to set up camp. We hiked off the trail a bit so we would be out of view of the main trail. Were still unsure as to the legality of sleeping on this mountain so the more inconspicuous we can be the better.

We found and set up camp with enough time to catch the sunset from the peak, by now no one was left on the mountain.

The next day it rained all day and we didn't leave the tent at all. It was just steady all day long only slowing near nightfall. It let up enough for us to get a fire going and dry some of our clothes. Well I guess I was the only one that needed to dry anything. This far up on the mountain was like sleeping in a cloud, not ON but IN. The fog rolled in so thick that our headlamps showed us about 2 meters ahead. The light of our fire illuminated the snow with an orange glow and the sliver of moonlight backlite the bare and claw tendrils of the winter trees around us. Behold the scraping fingers of those trees lay the entrance to purgatory. As though if we were to step outside the light of our camp we would be lost forever.

The following night brought with it freezing rain that gave way to snow encasing our tent. Many times throughout the night we had to shake it off the tent and in the morning we awoke to what you see here.

I walked up to check the trail and how deep the new snow was. By doing so I inadvertently created a new set of tracks that led groups of hikers right into our camp site. Most of them were amazed that we slept on the mountain and none of them were concerned with the legality of it so I guess that answers that.

From here we decided to head over to the temple that we saw on the opposite peak of munsubong (the peak from above). We took a trail that no one had broken the new fallen snow and as we approached we could hear echoing through the trees the sounds of chanting and our anticipation grew.

As we rounded the last set of trees the temple came into view and we were again met with hordes of people surrounding the shrine, the chanting was a recording over a loud speaker. While the temple was still worth seeing the wonder of it had faded significantly.

We headed off the mountain to find some accomidations until the main day of the festival. We found a nearby hotel and turned our room into a staging area to clean and dry our gear. We were lucky that the people at this hotel would exchange some money for us so that we could stay the 2 nights we needed to see the festival and head to Seoul.






The town had made some progress in its snow sculpting. The festival started on the 22nd and lasted until the 31st. From what we could tell they would continue working on the sculptures throughout the festival because even though the even had begun many of the sculptures were still being worked on. There was even an igloo the size of a house with a little cafe set up in it with ice tables.

We unfortunatly missed out on the snowball fight. One of the handicaps to not knowing the language. We were in town but apparantly that event was being held had some ski hill at another location. Oh well, its to be expected, we had a good time.

Right now im writing this from a hostel in Seoul with a plethera of travelers. Some have been traveling for 10 months or more just going from place to place, some are students. There's a very diverse group of people here. Should be a good place to stay and rest up before the next grueling part of our trip.... White beaches and blue oceans, life is rough.