The First "Hike"

Hi!

Last weekend I did end up going hiking.  It was an experience.  I went with one of the girls, and I specifically said, 'I want to ease into it, so no more than two hours and none of the rope or cable areas.'  I was told that there were areas that were very difficult, and that you required a rope or steel pegs hammered into the mountain to climb there.  To me that sounded to much like rock climbing, and I had no interest in that.  I was told there was the easy path, without the mild rock climbing, and the hard path, with it.  So, we started up the path toward the mountain.  It was going well.  There was beautiful scenery, which I had to enjoy often because I wasn't used to the elevation.

It was a challenging "hike", but at times was quite enjoyable.  There was a Buddhist temple on the mountain and we decided we would hike up to it.  Part way up the mountain I found a ski machine.  I found this hilarious.  There is nothing like climbing an hour up a mountain before you decide to really exercise.  You do get a nice view, but I think the climbing is good enough.  I, of course, had to get on it and get a picture.  You're welcome. 

With a little help from some Korean hikers, we eventually found our way to the temple.  There was a small stream, and with the view it was lovely, a great place to meditate.  This where the journey really took a turn. I asked one of the Korean hikers if we could go up to the temple.  He said no, but pointed to some stairs that ran up beside it.  We decided to get a look of the view from up there.  After a rest he followed us up.  We were debating on heading back down and he waved for us to follow him.  I didn't want to be impolite since he had helped us earlier and was still helping  us, and I figured he was going to show us how to meet up with the path that had split with ours before the temple.  Meaning, we would do a short loop and head back down the way we came.  It was not to be.

We climbed up rock stair after rock stair until my legs could hardly lift me.  The Koreans are like frickin' goats on the mountain, so the man, who was 50 or 60 years old, was getting further and further ahead of us. Every now and then he would pause to wait for us, which gave him a rest, but because we were trying to catch up there was no rest for us.  We kept saying we're almost there, we're almost there.  We weren't.  That man was too fast for us, and finally he left us behind.  There were many people on the mountain, I think this is their favorite past-time, so whenever one or a group past us they would guide us for a while.  Meanwhile, we were just saying how this was a sick, sick joke, and surely we must almost be at the top.  There must have been five times we thought we were about to be at the top, only to find another peak when we climbed high enough.

Eventually though, we did finally make it to the top.  Oh, the joy!  There were two arrows, one pointing to the direction we came from, and the other pointing the opposite direction.  After all of that I sure as heck wasn't going to climb down the way I had come up.  I had wanted to complete the loop and join the path we had split from, so, we chose the path going in the opposite direction.  This was our second mistake.  The first mistake was following the Korean man above the temple.  It started easily enough.  My energy was renewed at not having to climb anymore, and going down was fun for 10 minutes.  The mountain was very steep, and we had to use a rope in short spurts to get down it.  The first few times weren't bad, but then it got even more steep, and they switched to steal pegs and cables.  We then had to repel down the cliff, again only for short sections at a time, but there were about three of these sections where there was a meter or so that you could not get a foothold.  It was basically a shear drop for that meter (which then turns  to a slightly less shear drop with a small foothold), and I have long legs, but in those three sections they were not long enough.  Those three spots really took the fun out of that and by the time were were done the steep section we just wanted to be off the mountain, but we were only half way down it. 

Down and down we went, feeling like we weren't getting any closer to ground level.  It was still a steep decline, but we didn't require ropes or anything.  There was one place where I had to stop myself from  rolling down the path by catching a tree, or falling into it, whatever you want to call it.  I also fell on my rear a ways further down the mountain.  Down and down we went, until we finally made it down the mountain.  We came to the entrance of the mountain and we had no idea where we were.  There was a map and it looked like we were at the other end of the city.  I asked a man where the train station was and he said it wasn't far. That was a relief, things were turning up.  We asked him the time and he told us.  Our two hour hike had turned into a four hour hike.  He asked us what area we lived in and we told him and he said that was the station he was taking us to.  We were two blocks away from where we entered the mountain.  We were so exhausted we were just relieved we were so close to home.

So, the moral of the story.......I'm not going past the temple again.