A Trail Named Gwaneumsa

Such activities like Midnight Hikes always sound so incredible before and after you complete them. The nervous excitement before embarking on such a difficult task and the bragging rights you own after the event are certainly enough currency to motivate heaps of people to participate in such a silly activity! As of last Friday, I am now the proud owner of at least 50 Midnight Hiking bucks!

Halla Mountain, South Korea's largest, is a huge, dormant volcano that sits in the middle of our little Korean paradise here on Jeju Island. She scrapes the sky at a whopping 1,950 meters. There are four operating trails up and down her rocky, rough terrain, though only two of these trails reach the summit. Our task, this wayward Thursday evening, to climb quickly up a trail named Gwaneumsa, in time to catch the sunrise, quickly hike down and show up to work on time (Ok, well I was the only one of the bunch required to show up to work the next day)!

This particular adventure was inspired by the immanent departure of a good friend, Chandra. She'd wanted to do the hike for sometime now, and we all agreed that it'd be a great way to say good-bye to her. So we, well some of us anyway, packed our bags with water, warm gear and snacks, strapped on our hiking shoes, and planned to rendez-vous at 10:45 Thursday evening. Though heaps more than a handful of friends had originally agreed to join this Midnight adventure, only 5 of us were willing to actually tough it out. So we all piled in one car and drove up to the trial's entrance.

A side note, here, is necessary to fully understand our next decision. On Jeju, we have what westerners commonly call the 'Fun Police'. Just as normal police (theoretically) prevent and reprimand one from committing some sort of criminal activity, the Jeju Fun Police prevent and reprimand one from having fun. Such Fun Police can be found at beaches, using whistles to call folks in from swimming outside the very small roped area, that is, no more nor less safe than the rest of the close-to-shore ocean waters. They can also show up when you are standing in knee-deep ocean waters, not swimming, to blow their whistles at you for some inexplicable danger you are bringing upon yourself. They also prevent you from hiking up the mountain at certain times, and make sure that you turn around at other times to keep everyone safe...and bored!

Bearing this in mind, we worried about parking the car in the trail entrance lot, as it could have drawn attention to our very-against-Fun-Police-rules Midnight Hike. So we parked the car meters away, where we had to jump over a ditch, climb over a stone wall and very suspiciously creep into the park. As we neared the trail head, I spotted, a not-so-cautious 5-year-old girl in the well-lit public bathroom. Then we heard a heap of voices, spotted tons of families in family sized tents, bottles of beer and soju laying about, and laughed, though still quietly, to ourselves for tip-toeing into a well trodden place!

Our assent was quick and painful. We hiked, headlamps on, staring at the dimly lit spot just before each step. Headlamp light is dizzying, and bumpy trails are even hard to walk on in daylight, so the combination of the two should really have slowed us down. But it didn't. We stopped only a few times, to drink water, check out the city views, and verify that all Midnight Hiking members were doing well. In addition to being few and far between, our rests were cut short by the cooling of our sweat on our wet clothes. As the Mountain-air thinned, so too did our ability to stand still for long.

This trail named Gwaneumsa begins at a relatively easy pace. The small pebbled trail head transforms into larger boulders, as the gradual incline allows hikers to set a very quick pace. Even when we walked over precarious large boulders to cross the river a few times, our pace did not slow. After a few kilometers of gradual incline, this trail named Gwaneumsa plummets down a huge, leg-shaking staircase. After walking down the 100 some stairs, hikers spend 5 minutes walking on flat boulders only to walk straight back up again. The sweet, gradual terrain of an lazy afternoon hike is light years behind as hikers look up the daunting staircase, no end to the assent in sight. It is a steady, steep incline from the top of these stairs for kilometers up the trail. Step, by step, my legs wondered why they have to work so hard at 2am, when they should be resting, flexing only if being chased in a dream. But they obeyed my silly commands, and we continued our assent.

This trail named Gwaneumsa, swells in difficulty as the hours of ascending continue. Before reaching the summit, the augmented boulder-steps, ruthlessly ask the hiker for endurance, I was just not too sure that I had! Near the top, scorning the rocky trail, my pace slowed, and my mind raced with whether or not I could finish. Just when I was sure that Midnight Hiking was only for fools, we spotted a familiar turn, THE SUMMIT!! I cannot say that we raced to the top, but at my slowed, patient, newly excited pace, we summited the largest mountain in South Korea, just after 4 hours of starting our journey. It was 3:30am and the sun was not due to rise until 5:50.

The tops of mountains are cold. Regardless of season, the tops of mountains are cold. Though armed with a bit of warm gear and a bottle of Korean raspberry wine, Bok Bun ja ju, the chilly mountain top was no place to relax after a long, hard hike. We huddled together, layed in a line, all facing one way to spoon each other, hoping to trap in some body heat and attempted to rest for a bit of our 2 hour sunrise wait. After a good 45 minutes, we decided to eat a bit, to try and stay warm. We snacked, further confusing our bodies with a 5am feast of kimbab, crackers, cookies and wine.

After feasting and huddling together once more we waited, as penguins would, as the sky began to glow deep purples and reds. Though there were clouds surrounding the mountain, a slit of sunlight and clear skies peeked through the cloud cover, just due East. Cameras in hands, we snapped away at the beautiful colors and each other. Just as we had given up hope at actually seeing the perfectly round sun rise into our small, clear slit, Chandra spotted it. THE SUN!

Feeling quite proud that we actually got to watch the sunrise on this overcast morning, we pack our bags, and headed down the mountain. After an hour of our descent, my exhausted, confused body got a little sick. I had to make a few emergency bathroom stops, and caught up to the others just as the rain hit. 2 of our 3 hours down the trail named Gwaneumsa were made a bit more difficult as the rain turned dry rocks slipperery. But we had one objective in mind, get down and and get to bed. Hiking down with the sun's light as oppose to our headlamps made quite the improvement for foot placing, and we bounded down at a leg-shaking quick pace.

As we hiked back to our car, out of the parking lot by a few meters, we all agreed that the Midnight Hike up and back down a trail named Gwaneumsa was a great adventure. One so great, we never need repeat it!