Over this past weekend, I made an epic transformation from an ordinary country girl to an advanced mountineer.
Location: Sa Ryang Do Island, about a forty minute ferry ride from the coastal town of TongYeong in the Southern province of Gyeongsang.
Population: Roughly 136,000
Mountain name: Jagged Ridge...and boy was it jaggedy!
Height of highest peak: 400 meters
Time: a little under 6 hours
When I was back in Toronto, Canada, lightly packing to move to Korea, I had this idea in my airy naive head that Korea would be warm. I thought: Canada equals cold. Korea equals Asia. Asia equals hot. Well, as I packed lightly, cramming my life into ONE suitcase and donating everything else I owned to my sisters, I came to this country sans my protective top class winter gear. Enduring the LONG Korean winter was brutal, and this is a HUGE statement seeing as how I lived in Ottawa's cold for four years of university.
Well, as winter slowly progresses into March and just about April, it is apparent that the "flowering season" here in Korea is just as cold as their winter months. I have been here since November 02 and I have not had one day where I did not have to wear my winter jacket to school. For a girl who's moods change with the seasons, I was feeling rather down. Down in a way that a drunken weekend in Hongdae just would'nt fix, so I decided to go hiking with this travel group. There were 44 people signed up for this mission, we had a full chartered bus leaving downtown Seoul at 11:30 pm Friday night, and we were due back Sunday at about 9 pm. I was pumped for this weekend of exercising, fresh air, and pushing my body to its unfit limits.
We arrived in TongYeong at about 4 am in the morning. Most of us slept on the bus en route, some of us drank (not me for once), and we had to wait until 8am to bring the bus onto the ferry and to the Island. It took five hours to drive from the top of South Korea to the southernmost part. (This country is TINY! In Canada, if you drive for six hours you might still not be at your cottage). At about 6am, we went to the seashore to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful in the way sunrises are; magical, illuminating, and you now, made me tingly inside, breathe alittle deeper. Tong Yeong is a small town. The area is surrounded by what I believe is the Sea of Japan or the East China Sea. Whatever, its still the ocean to me.
We embarked on the hike at about 9 am and about an hour and a half later, we reached what I thought was the highest peak at 398 meters (I later came across a marking that read 400m). I celebrated, let out some yelps of "Oh Yeah! Oh Baby! Hoots Hoots!", took some photos, shared a victory chocolate bar with someone, and shot back a couple bottle caps of whisky. I did not realize that this was only the first peak in a about a dozen more peaks to climb and four more hours to traverse the entire island's mountain range. It was a lot of ascending to the peak, stopping to catch our breaths and gawk at the beauty of it all, descend a bit, and then ascend again. Six hours of this nearly tore my thigh muscles to shreds and disintegreated my kneecaps. I was a wreck. But it was thrilling. The mountain, Jagged Ridge, lived up to its name, the rocks were sometimes sharp, very pointy, and at times the peaks were so steep that I was crawling on my hands and knee. At the last main peak, I and three others whom I was climbing with, could not do it. It was so steep and there were ropes but it was an almost perfect vertical line. I was so distraught, my legs were begging for mercy, and my adrenaline was replaced with sheer exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. I did not do the final peak and now that I think back on it, my heart breaks a little.
This was the first mountain that I hiked, although the term "hiking" sounds a little inadequate to describe the amount of mountain "climbing" I did. My shoulders and back were sore the next morning from never using a rope to descend a cliff before and I dont think my knee caps will ever be the same. Im more unfit than an 80-year-old Ajumma it seems. Hiking is a great sport, and I am glad the new me chose to do it. I was thinking as I embarked on the climb, that the me of last year would never have wanted to climb a mountain. Where's the fun? But this new me, ready for all life's expereinces, toughened up, conquered her fear of heights and, well, lets be honest here, her fear of exercise, and climbed this mountain quite admirably. At one point about three hours in, I was faced with the first real steep cliff. Compared to the other steep vertical cliffs I would later encounter, this one was really nothing, but being the first it was scary. No ropes, just the jagged cliffside, me in my new Nike runners, and a test of willpower and nerves. I was mid way up this cliff, both feet secure into little craters in the cliff and my hands grabbing on, when I decided to pause and look down. A moment of terror seized me and at that point I had a brief moment where my nerves and fears kind of paralysed me for a second, but before I could assess the situation and think, I just kept climbing until I reached the top. I think thats what got me, the least active and brave girl I know, to finish that mountain. Once you let the fear in, it only takes a nanosecond to spread and encompass you. I think what I am trying to say is, and I think Nike says it best, is
just do it.
After the hike, we took the ferry back to the coastal town and stayed at this beautiful seaside pension, right next to the water, with the mountain view in the back, and an adorable dog I named Loraine Bobbit. I have never been to the Maritimes in Canada, but I bet it would look and feel and smell just like this place. Peaceful. Quiet. Homey.
The night ended with a BBQ, some soju and beer, and some very much deserved sleep. The Sunday that followed, a small group of us hiked another mountain just behind the pension, but it was hardly a mountain and barey a hike, just a peaceful incline where we could laugh with each other, watch turtles struggling to mount a rock in a pond, and I saw cherry blossoms blossom.
We got back to Seoul at 9pm Sunday evening and I got back to my house at 11:30 pm.
I had a great weekend and when spring does come, I'll make sure I have plenty more mountains to climb and fears to conquer.
