Take a Hike!

Nana and I had our first Korean hiking experience last weekend. Shorter than expected--due to a late start and my better half's burgeoning cold--but enough for a brief glimpse into the Korean hiking culture, at least at one of the most popular day-trip destinations on one of the most beautiful days of the year.

So! We arrived at the subway station about five stops north of where we live. The station is actually named for the mountain, Dobongsan, which probably should have been our first tip off that this was going to be a strange day. Our second tipoff should have been the huge clusters of pristinely-equipped Koreans flowing uphill from the station . . . but before any of that, we found this completely inexplicable field full of flowers across from the station exit. So, naturally, we frolicked.



Then and only then did we turn our feet downstream . . . which is to say uphill . . . with the tide of well-dressed trekkers. (Mixed metaphors are an early sign of encroaching bedtime.) At which point we discovered that the trailhead was still a 10-minute walk away, through a not-so-small village of gear shops, knockoff gear shops, and open-air eateries serving grilled stinkfish (that's what I call them, anyway) that you could watch in their aquariums, floating upside down, blissfully dead, near the top of the tank. Needless to say, we pressed on, and quickly--I didn't even get a picture!--figuring that pretty soon the shops and restaurants and stuff would give way to wilderness, and at least a few meters of open trail.

Well . . . in short, we were wrong. Even given the large number of Koreans who seem to get all dressed up (we're talking backpacks, walking sticks, even helmets) to hike all the long way to the restaurant furthest from the bus stop at the head of the trail (to consume stinkfish and soju, of course), the trails were utterly packed.

And we're talking packed, here. Not hippy-whining about seeing eight other people on a seven-mile trail packed. Amusement-park packed. I mean, the real challenge wasn't the hiking itself (we didn't get all the way up to the hard stuff), it was hiking at speed, in time with everyone else. You couldn't take time to find a new foothold before you stepped, because then the person behind you would bump into you. And you had to find a foothold while your foot was in the air, because you couldn't go back--the person behind you already had a foot in the foothold you just left. No wonder they need all that gear! The poles are clearly for whacking slowpokes, and the helmets for withstanding whacks.

And if you think the handful of hikers out there in high-heels (carrying parasols) made anything better . . . well, you'd be wrong.

Now, don't you fear--the day wasn't a total loss. We did see a chipmunk, over which everybody completely freaked out, and we did learn a valuable lesson, which is never to hike on a nice Sunday in September (absolute most crowded it gets, except for maybe a nice Sunday in late October), unless you like to hike like you drive. But on the whole, it was an experience I don't hope to repeat. So next time, it'll be a weekday or a Saturday (most Korean kids are in school on Saturdays), and not an incredibly nice one. Though the stinkfish (ah, the stinkfish!) I don't think we'll have a way to avoid.