Chuseok vacation day 1 part 2: Songnisan National Park

After exploring Beopjusa, I went further into the park. It was quite pleasant to be truly alone for a while (Korea's population density gets to me sometimes.) The leaves were only changing on a few of the trees even though it was October, but those few trees were a vibrant red. It was a warm and pleasant walk, though the path became hard to find when in joined up with a rocky riverbed. In the riverbed I saw a snake, which was especially fun since one hardly sees any sort of wildlife in Korea. I missed the point where the two diverged again and so had to cut across the underbrush to get back on a trail. I finally got to the top of a mountain and saw a marker at it's very top, about thirty feet above me. I brilliantly decided that if workers could climb up there to place the marker, then I could get up too. I started climbing along the crevice between the two halves of the stone dome and was most of the way up when I couldn't make it up any farther. I was afraid for a few seconds that I would slide down the steep rock face, but I managed to get back in control and ease my way back down. After catching my breath and seeing that my wounds were superficial, I dropped my pack, tightened my boots, pocketed some gummy bears, and went back up. It was much much easier without the encumbrance of the pack putting me off balance. After enjoying some ursine delights, I climbed back down and headed on my way.

Unfortunately, because of my earlier time off the path, I was wrong about where my way was. I thought I was on one end of a loop of mountains and that I should continue to the highest one, when it turns out that I was already on the highest of the mountains which was on a dead end from the rest of the loop. I couldn't find the trail going East (because there wasn't one), but since trails are often hard to find on the very tops of mountains I (again, brilliantly) decided to cut through the brush around the rocky top part and meet up with it, which would have worked had there been a path to meet up with. Instead, I found myself on top of a series of small cliffs. At one point I was walking on a narrow ledge looking across a small ravine (about a 20 foot drop) and was calculating that I could jump over it as long as I didn't hit the rock wall on my left or the tree right next to it or tumble past it and off the continuation of the ledge to my right. I was actually about to jump (apparently I was in a reckless mood) when a part of my brain screamed "What am I doing?!?" rather like Bugs Bunny does as he is about to hit a bomb with a sledgehammer in the gremlins episode. I probably would have made it, but I also probably would have died if I didn't, so I think I made the right call even if there had been a path there.

I backtracked my way onto the path and followed it until I came to a three way intersection, at which point I realized where I was. The sun was getting low so I jogged along the rest of the loop, briefly stopping at the other smaller peaks without even pausing for gummy bears. As the sun went behind the mountains I saw an animal running from me into the underbrush. I didn't see it very well, but it looked like a hairy pig and may indeed have been a wild boar (the do exist in Korea and are delicious, but we'll get to that in a few months), though it may just have been a really lost dog whose legs didn't bend much as it ran. After a while it became too dark to be safe to jog anymore, but I realized that if I didn't go quickly it would be fully dark and I wouldn't be able to see the path at all and would be hopelessly lost for the night (I didn't have a light with me), so I compromised and jogged during the straight dirt parts and walked when the path was rocky or otherwise dangerous. At about this point I promised the mountain gods a sacrifice if I made it to the road before full dark.

I should explain. For a while I played with the idea of worshiping gods for everyday things, much like people everywhere have for eons before monotheism became so popular. I thought that since there is no truth, why not make things more interesting and live in a Gaiman-esque world full of gods, goblins, and magic. Also, I was watching the TV series Rome, where household gods and sacrifice were quite common. I was struck by scenes from the show where one of the protagonists kills a bug when pleading to the gods or where he reassures his friend that his curse said in anger didn't count because he didn't kill an animal on it. For a few months I was probably the most devout worshiper the Gods of the Street Crossing have ever known as I silently thanked them on my bike rides to and from work or across the city on each dangerous crossing made successfully and when the crosswalk changed in my favor. I have since stopped the practice since I decided that it wasn't enriching my world or making it more magical, but instead felt like I was putting myself in a subservient position to these forces that I myself had invented.

I did eventually find a cement road toward the city. I soon saw an injured praying mantis limping across the road. I bowed and thanked the mountain gods for granting my request as I squished the mantis under my boot.

Ummm... anyway...the pictures for this post start here.