St. Paddy's Day Hike

While other people were going to spend St. Patrick's Day getting drunk, I made plans to go hiking.  I was prepared for a more relaxed, low-key day.  However, I found myself having more of an adventure than I originally bargained for!

Mark and I made the plan to go hiking earlier in the week.  As the weekend approached, we were not sure if we would be able to head into the mountains as the forecast called for a rainy weekend.  It rained most of the day on Friday and early Saturday morning didn't look promising.  By 10:00, it was still dreary and foggy, but it looked like the rain might hold up so we decided to head out anyway.  Our planned route was to head up the mountain using the trail head behind the Gyeongsangnam Provincial Office, hike along the ridge line, and come back down to the trail head next to the shooting range. 

In the beginning, everything was going according to plan.  We made it up to the first peak in an hour and fifteen minutes.  The peaks along the ridge line offer spectacular views of Changwon on clear days, but it was very foggy on this particular day.  Despite the fog, we could still make out the buildings below and kept our eyes on the shooting range.  Going from peak to peak was exhilarating, and at times scary.  The were staircases going up the side of a rock formation with nothing underneath the stairs but a long drop to the ground below.  In another place, the trail was narrow with steep drops on either side that one misstep could mean serious trouble.  Oh, and don't let me forget to mention that the rain from the day before left some of the rocks slippery and sections of the trail muddy.  I wiped out once and had a few other close calls due to the conditions.

The fog was thick early in the morning and afternoon.

 Notice the slope of the rock ledge.  There was not much underneath the stairs except a long drop down.

The view from one of the staircases bolted to the side of the mountain.

 This part of Jeong Byeong Mountain is 460 m high.

 We found this perch with a scenic view.  However, falling can be hazardous to one's health!

566 m high on Jeong Byeong Mountain.  I think the highest elevation was 583 m but I didn't see a marker at the peak.

Like I said, reaching each new peak was exhilarating and provided a great sense of accomplishment, especially for being in the shape I'm in.  Because of this, we kept going along the ridge line, further than we should have.  Hiking is very popular in Korea and on the weekends, the trails can be crowded.  While the weather kept some people home, there were still many Koreans on the trails.  However, after reaching the last peak, we should have noticed that we were no longer seeing other people on the trail, but we were oblivious at first.  Descending the other side of the mountain was not an easy task.  There were parts along the trail where you had to scale down the sides of rocks and navigate down steep, muddy slopes.  Before long, we realized that the trail was not taking us down toward the shooting range, but rather toward some other town or neighborhood on the other side of the mountain! 

 Some parts required scaling down the rocks using ropes.

We kept going down, but tried to find a trail or other navigable route that would take us around the mountains into Changwon.  We weren't having any luck until we were near the bottom of the mountain.  There, the trail split off into two, one direction continuing on toward the base and the other seeming to head in the direction we needed to go.  We took the trail to the left hoping it would lead us in the right direction.  Although the trail was marked, it did not look like it was used often.  Low hanging branches and overgrown bushes obstructed the way.  At one point, my jacket got caught on a branch with many thorns and Mark had to help me get unstuck.  Eventually, the trail disappeared and we seemed to be in an orchard of some sort at the base of the mountain.  At this point, I was becoming exhausted.  We found a dirt road and followed that through the orchard.  About 20-30 minutes later, after having to backtrack once due to a dead end, we came upon a Korean man and woman who were probably working the farm.  We tried to ask how to get to Changwon University, and the man did his best to point us in the right direction.  It was not a good sign when Mark asked about finding a taxi and the woman laughed.

 We found these near the base of the mountain.  I don't know what they were.

 We had to navigate through this orchard(?) until we found the road (below).

We continued down the road in the direction the man pointed.  Soon, we were walking through a small area of houses which I assumed were for people who worked the land in one form or another.  There were also chicken coops along the road with roosters crowing as we walked by.  Eventually, we saw a paved road and a building so we headed in that direction.  The building turned out to be deserted as it looked like it was just constructed.  The main road turned out to be a brand new expressway going under the mountains that was not yet open.  Considering the only alternative was to go up and over the mountain without a trail to guide us, we started walking along the deserted expressway through the tunnel under the mountain.  Although it was nice and cool inside the tunnel, it seemed to go on forever.  We walked for at least 15-20 minutes before we came out the other side.

 The tunnel seemed to go on FOREVER!!!

There was a random phone booth in the tunnel.

The good news was we could now see the university.  The bad news was we still had to get off the elevated expressway and across the fenced-off railroad tracks.  A ways down, we saw what appeared to be an overpass over the tracks.  Looking further down the expressway, we spotted signs (still shrink-wrapped as the expressway wasn't open) for an exit toward the university and the train station.  After making our way toward the exit and down the ramp, we noticed the exit is not yet finished.  Also, the exit was not connected with the overpass we spotted earlier.  To get to the overpass, we had to scale down a dirt embankment.  To our disappointment, the overpass was part of the construction still going on and led to a dead-end on the other side.  At least we were over the railroad tracks though!

Our best option at that point was to slide down another embankment and walk along the fence that paralleled the railroad tracks.  Our plan was to follow the tracks to the station and catch a taxi there.  After walking a while along the fence, we ran into a Korean couple going in the opposite direction.  They seemed to be trying to point us in a different direction which was through a cemetery.  We obliged and after passing through the cemetery and another muddy area, we were at the university.  Sweaty, exhausted, and muddy, we made our way to the entrance of the university and hopped in a taxi to take us home.

The path along the railroad tracks.

What should have been a 3-4 hour hike turned into an adventure lasting over 6 hours!  Despite being lost and exhausted, we never panicked or lost our spirits.  Even during our trek, we were able to joke around and state that this was one hike that won't soon be forgotten!