Gwanaksan

Well, the sun is back which means it's time to find another mountain to climb. Today's was Gwanaksan, which is in the south part of the city nearer to home. The guidebook said that it was right next to the University, so I got off at what I supposed was the correct stop and poked around.

Well, it didn't exactly look right. There was a University all right, but not a mountain to be seen. It took me an hour of wandering around and double-checking my maps to realize that I was supposed to be at Seoul National University. The place I was currently at was Seoul National University of Education. They were only three subways stops away from each other. If I had had access to a desk, my head would have impacted it at great speed.

So I scooted down to the correct stop. Oh, yes. This looks much more promising.

I started off on a distressingly busy, wide, paved road that wound tentatively around the base of the mountain. Not content to find out when it would get over itself and start going upwards, and also not content to share the road with many, many old ladies in enormous visors, I took the first turnoff in search of steeper and more interesting hiking. I found it.

Holy. Crap. I. Love. This. Mountain.

This was ridiculously fun and scary to climb. At first I just used the rope as an insurance policy, but there were parts so sheer that I just had to plant my feet against the rock and trust to the rope. I wonder how many people fall backwards off this cliff and die every year? It has to be at least a few.

Made it! That's the rope behind me dropping off into scariness below.

I really didn't want to try to go back down the way I had come, so I kept clambering up and over until I found this: a flatter, saner way down. Phew!

The view was, of course, fantastic. But you see those two mountains in the top picture? I thought I was climbing the right-hand one. Turns out I was offroading it to some other place entirely, so I still have plenty of mountain left to explore. I hope the rest of it is as interesting as what I found today.

Tomorrow is hiking with my Korean class, including Drew, Doug, and Kyle. I'd better get some sleep tonight.