More rain, more fun
DAY 3
Day three of our Jeju Island trip was predominantly spent hiking. Gedas was the rise-and-shine-let's-get-going-at-6AM guy who stirred up a ruckus getting ready while trying to convince us it was a great idea to get up before the sun to go hiking. Needless to say, it didn't work. Convinced he had to leave no later than 8AM to be able to hike all the way to the top of the mountain, Gedas ended up going by himself to hike. The other four of us decided to take a more leisurely hike up the same mountain but not go all the way up.
We took a bus from the Jeju City bus terminal to Mt. Hallasan National Park/한라산국립공원. This mountain is a popular hike because of the giant lake at the top of the mountain. The main mountain is also surrounded by small, parasitic volcanoes, which is a fun fact. The park is situated in almost the exact middle of the island, and it took us around one hour by bus to get there. The park had two entrances, and we didn't know which bus stop to get off of. Of course, we picked the wrong one and ended up walking for about 35 minutes just to get to the actual park entrance.
After our unplanned, long trek to the correct bus stop, we reached the actual beginning of the trail we had intended to hike that day. The parking lot where the trail started was deserted. There wasn't a car there, which kind of surprised us, but the weather still wasn't all that great at the time, so it wasn't entirely unexpected.
We ended up seeing quite a number of people on the trail who must have taken buses or taxis from the bus stop we had gotten off at to the trail head. We decided about halfway through our hike that we were most definitely going to take some kind of bus or taxi back to the bus stop we had gotten off at instead of walking back.
The lush green-ness of the area surrounding the mountain is absolutely stunning. Actually, Mt. Hallasan is famous for its greenery. Mt. Hallasan is famous for its "vertical ecosystem of plants that results from the varying temperatures along the mountainside. Over 1,800 kinds of plants and 4,000 species of animals (3,300 species of insects) have been identified."
The further up the trail we got, the more foggy the air was and the more humid it got. Pretty soon, it kind of felt like we were breathing clouds, even though we weren't that high up in the mountain. The rain and the humidity didn't make the trek terribly exciting, but the view was so beautiful that everything else could easily be forgiven. It truly was amazing seeing what was all growing up the mountain and the fact that everything was growing straight up rather than at any sort of tilted angle. We didn't see many animals, although we did see a number of signs to watch out for snakes, which didn't sit particularly well with certain members of our party. (For the record, we never saw any snakes.)
I'm honestly not even sure how long we hiked up, but I do know that we didn't go all the up to the top. The amount of time it took us to get up to where we stopped made it impossible to make it all the way up and get back down before the sun would've gone down. It took us 3-4 hours to make it as far as we did, but took us almost half that time to get back down. Going down long sets of stairs is much easier than going up those same stairs, let me tell you. Being at the top and looking back on how far we'd come was amazing though. To think we could get up as high as we had in the short amount of time we hiked was rather wild. For those of us who wanted an easier hike, this was definitely the right choice.
The stairs really seemed endless. We just kept climbing and climbing and climbing, with no real end in sight. The tip of the mountain was probably still kilometers away, but we never even got a glimpse of it thanks to the fog. At the same time, the fog was a great addition to the hike. It kind of gave me the feeling of climbing to heaven. To be so high above the earth and to be surrounded by the fog was a bit of a surreal experience, even though I've hiked mountains before. It also felt a bit strange to be utterly surrounded by something that blocked your view of your surroundings.
The fog did clear up a bit as we climbed higher, since we were above the fog after a while, rather than inside it. It still amazes me to look at the pictures I took throughout this hike and see just how distinct the boundaries of the fog were, and yet also know that when you're actually there, it seems there is no beginning and end. It just is.
The four of us switched back and forth carrying the backpack we'd brought. We had remembered to bring food and water that time, which was definitely what kept us alive when we finally stopped climbing to take a rest. We had packed a number of water bottles and bags of chips, none of which lasted long enough to really fill us up, but it was enough for the time being. You'd think after spending years growing up camping and hiking, I would have planned better with the food/water rations...but, alas, I did not. So there's my tip for anyone who plans on hiking on Jeju Island is to bring lots of snacks and water. Everywhere you go, actually. Better to be prepared.
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| L to R: Marley, me, Jenni, & Andy |
As I said before, going down took us almost half the time it took us to get up. I'm pretty sure all of our thanks were thankful we could spend 1.5-2 hours going down the stairs. We ended up exiting the trail at another entrance, where most of the people we saw on the trail must have entered. There was a small office with trail information and a pressurized air pump station. The air pump station was so that you could blow off the dirt and mud from your shoes. Very thoughtful of you Jeju.
We took a (very wild) taxi ride back to where we had entered the park, and we hopped on the next bus back to Jeju City. We got back to the city just after dark, and were definitely ready to shower, sit down, relax, and eat good food. We ordered fried chicken for delivery, which was a fiasco of its own, and waited for Gedas to get back. He ended up not having time to get all the way up the mountain either thanks to a wrong turn he'd taken on the trail, but he did get much farther up than we did.
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If I ever get to go back to Jeju Island, I definitely want to try to get out on the trails earlier and hike longer. There's so much to see that we weren't able to since we got started so late (though I'm all for sleeping in, don't get me wrong).
But, it was another great day spent with great people, and definitely one of the most beautiful days I had while in South Korea.
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