The Best Worst Hike Ever

Well today started out with pure promise. And if went south quick, I should have heeded the omen. Now let me blow your mind with the omen. I tried to get breakfast and was shuffled out of one restaurant down to a cafe where they immediately cut up and served me a egg salad sandwich with lots of mayo a piece of ham and ketchup. Because a) I was going on a serious 5 hour hike and b) I refused to offend anyone, I actually stomached down half the damn thing. My stomach was literally lurching the whole time. Oh and did I mention a black cat literally ran across my foot this morning,

For the uninitiated I have a deathly phobia of all things mayo. This might be the first time I’ve had mayo since… Well ever maybe.

But the women who served me were just so charming that I couldn’t not be happy. They pointed me to my bus and off I went in search of rope ladders, suspension bridges and precarious precipices.

Well the weather forecast was iffy and we definitely started out in a fog with a feeling of rain. I say we as there was one other older Korean couple who got off the bus at the same time and were going to do the hike. Turns out they will figure prominently in my days escapades.

Right off the bat the path is rocky, I mean slanted shale no flat foothold rocky. This quickly irritates my bad ankle and I lace up harder which seems to help. And so far I’m doing well on pace, nothing too fast nothing too slow. I pass the Korean couple, they pass me.. leapfrog is the name of the game.

Eventualy, they pass me taking a rest break and IMMEDIATELY stop and dig through their bag for candies… mini snickers and such. I at first take it that they are just being friendly like the woman at the bus stop. But then realize soon that they are concerned that the fat american who is sweating buckets just might be in over his head.

As i’ve don’t lots of hikes like this I write it off to friendly concern. I should have paid more attention.

During the hike there are several points where you can detour around the peak or scramble up a different path the the peak. You all know which route I took every time. Well this took an immense toll on my out of shape and aging body. I had now gone through almost all of my water, the snacks they gave me and well I had half a mayo sandwich in my bag but I wasn’t touching that.. no way. I was afraid it would make me vomit and I’d loose what little water I had left in my stomach.

Eventually I catch up to the Koreans again. Well it turns out I didn’t catch up, they waited for me as they were clearly if not overtly concerned. They gave me another huge handful of chocolates and a fig treat of some sort (I think) and then they began to walk just ahead of me, taking stops to let me catch up. They really were very sweet. Turns out they were from Busan and couldn’t believe that I found this Island as an American as they said that many Koreans don’t even know about it.

Well I began to lag and eventually I asked them if they were staying on the island or headed back to Toneyang and they were indeed trying to catch the ferry off the island yet today. So I told them kindly to not wait for me, I will make it but it will be VERY slow and they should NOT miss thier ferry on account of me being out of shape.

But they persevered in trying to polietly keep me in sight if not hearing range. However at one point I took the “risky route” choice instead of the bypass. And I swear by all things holy that I didn’t intend to. Because by this timem it was begininig to sink in, I hadn’t eaten enough, I didn’t have enough water and the sun had come out and was POUNDING down hard when you were exposed on the ridges. So during this one of my “risky” choices, my decision making begins to suffer. How so you may ask. Well at one point I was so desperate to get off the top of the ridge to the bypass route that I saw it down below me and that there was a little path leading steeply but what looked at the time safely down to hte path. Well I was WRONG. I ended up face to the rock face backing down the crevice, wedging my foot into little footholds not much larger than the toe of my shoe. Now the height wasn’t dramatic or anything but I’m telling you a slip and fall would have been catestrophic.

Well needless to say I made it down safely as I’m sitting here writing this. By this time I’ve long since lost touch with the Korean Couple (Mr. No… really and his wife whos name I can’t remember) I will always remember them for thier kindness and concern.

But now I am alone. And I’m really strarting to struggle with strength in my legs and being able to catch my breath and the hardest part of the climb is yet ahead… and sadly the parts that I had actually seen online that made me come here in the first place. I’m not ashamed to say I started getting a little concerned for my safety. Would I have enough left in the tank to make it off this mountain. I had gotten to the point that I would take 20-30 steps and then have to take a break. Eventually this turned into needing to sit down on a rock or tree root about every 5 minutes. And finally I accepted I would not be finishing this hike and started looking at the nifty little hiking app I downloaded to track my progress for an escape route. On the app, things did not look good. It was up and down three more peaks before I could cut off the side down to the village I’m staying in.

No choice, one foot in front of the other, what I wouldn’t have given for Klingers hangliders and pink fuzzy slippers right about then! But I turn the corner and down below me right at the bottom of a gulley which looks like it would be a natural place for an escape route I saw my village. But no escape route. Yet.

Not more than a couple hundred meters ahead was a signpost with the name of my village on it pointing right down the gulley that I saw from around the corner and it had a path leading down. Now this intersection was interesting in that it had a large wooden platform built. I can only guess forr resting and rest I did. I took a full 30-40 minutes in the shade, legs up, breathing deeply to both calm myself and try and get some oxygen to my body. And then it was down the escape route

Some escape route. It turned out to be as steep if not steeper than anything I’d hit all day, just one switchback after another aftere another after another……. you get the picture but you really don’t. My legs are quiverying, I’m in the thick of the jungle now so the bugs are coming at me full force and I am now completely out of water except for a chunk of ice in the last of my 1 liter water bottles that I had froze the nigth beforee thinking there would be no way in my backpack that damn thing wouldn’t melt completely (BTW, its still not fully melted). so every 10 steps or so I find a tree to lean against and every 5 mintues or so I find a rock to sit down on. And I keep telling myself, nobody is going to do this for you. Just take your 10 steps and take a break. EVENTUALLY you will finish.

Now my nifty little hiking app, while not having the trail on it, did have the ability to track my GPS progress. This turned out to be a HORRIBLE thing as everytime I looked at it, I swear it only showed minute progress. So you have the senario, and up it keeps. 30 minutes. 60 minutes. 90 minutes and finally 120 minutes later I finally reach the road that I had been hearing for an hour. BTW, did I mention that at the top the sign said .5 km… folks thats less than .4 miles, I should be able tot hike that in normal conditions in 20 or thirty minutes. Thus why I remained scared the entire route down.

Now the depressing part. I am nowhere near a busstop and cannot call a taxi becuase the damn esim I bought doesn’t allow outgoing calls just unlimited data… what a pile of crap. Anyway, I look at the sign at the bottom which shows what I think is the distance to my village and it says 1.7km. I have no idea how I’m going to walk on blacktop in the sun anotherr 1.5km with no water but I don’t have much choice so clop clop clop clop goes the fat american horse.

On the bright side, the road down into my village turned out to be not more than a couple hundred meters down the road and right at the top was a Coffee Shop that had what looked to be the lifesaving force of a million bottles of water in a big cooler. I rushed in (well rushed is dramatic, I wasn’t doing anything quickly at this point) and bought four bottles and downed two of them before I got my shoes back on. This of course turns out to be a bad idea as my stomach starts cramping up immediately.

Eventually I plod my way all the way down through the villiage, up the steep steps and into my room. I strip. Now when I tell you I was sweating, I mean there was not an iota of my clothes that were remotely dry still. Shorts, shirt, socks, I believe the insoles in my shoes were also wet. And then I found that I had sweat straight through my entire daypack. Ok.. so that is enough. I walk into the bathroom hit the cold water and stand there for about 45 minutes.

I crawl into bed and about 15 minutes later every muscle in my legs start to cycle through cramps. First my toes, then my calf then my hammies then my quads and then to the other leg when I roll over. Well this eventually went away afterr an hour or so but let me tell you I still hurt when I move right now, I am not looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Howeverr I did manage to finally get a good meal. It turned out it was just chopped up friend chicken one in a garlic sauce which was deliscious and one in a spicy sweet sauce which was also lovely. But the Koreans don’t really believe in removing the bones from anything so I had to fight my way through miscelaneous pices of chicken which I coulnd’t really identy but at this point I didn’t care. I had a tall beer in front of me and food to fuel up on.

After dinner I stopped at the CU and picked up a couple snickers, my guilty travel pleasure and some more of those cheesy ritz things that were so good the other day. Back to the room and here I am finishing this up.

I have decided I have been pushing myself too hard on this trip. I need to slow my roll a little. So I am going to skip the dive on Jeju but I am still going to go and take this sissy sunrise tour of the volcano rim and then just spend a day relaxing and getting ready for Thailand. So tomorrow is another travel day. Talk to you then.