Gangwon-do: Chiaksan National Park (치악산국립 공원)

After departing Sokcho we were bound for Pyeongchang, future home of the 2018 Winter Olympics.  Pyeongchang's claim to fame is a large ski resort called Alpensia where the Games will be hosted six years from now (Pyeongchang was finally awarded the games, to much elation, after two unsuccessful bids in the past).  We weren't planning on skiing on this trip (though I have gone twice in Gangwon-do this winter at a great resort called Vivaldi), so we didn't so much as glimpse Alpensia on our long trip down the expressway cutting Southwestwards towards Pyeongchang town itself.

Pyeongchang town's river

Actually I should be clear: we didn't do very much research on Pyeongchang (my draw to it initially was simply the fact that it had been recently awarded the Olympics), and thought that the capital of the county was actually a  city.  We were a little bit surprised when our bus pulled in to a very small station with no buildings insight, by a sign indicating that we'd indeed reached our destination.  We found ourselves in a very small place.  A few minutes later another foreign teacher approached us on the street and informed us we were on the main drag.  Then and there Brent and I decided that we'd stay for a little while longer and see what we could and then make for the city of Wonju in the evening.  We ended up crossing the town's resident river and climbing a hiking path up the hill on the other side.  At the top we were able to take it the whole city which was actually quite a lovely, rustic looking place nestled in the hills.  Korean totem poles, called Jangseung (장승), carved traditionally as village guardians, abounded along the river front.

Pretty setting at the base of the hill across the river

That's pretty much the breadth of Pyeongchang

If this character's face strikes you as curious, then whatever you're thinking is probably correct.  

A Pyeongchang 2018 totem

Traditionally Jangseung were mostly carved as laughing faces like this one, but specifically  frightening laughing faces.  The idea was to scare demons away from the village with such fearless, madly laughing guardians.

 After a couple hours we got on a bus for Wonju, a city whose nightlife turned out to be so dead at this time of year that we marveled at how so many bars and restaurants could possibly be open there.  Little matter, the next day we were destined for the most trying part of our journey: scaling Birobong peak in Chiaksan National Park.

We got off to a late start the next morning, and after some confusion with the buses finally reached the park.  Upon talking to the rangers at the entrance and telling them our intentions they said that we couldn't climb to Birobong peak because it was too dangerous at this time of year.  We could however, hike to the falls.  A bit disappointed we made off for said falls and, after a while of hiking along a frozen river, we reached them.  To say they were the falls at the time might be incorrect though--the waterfall was as frozen as the rest of the river, looking as if had flash frozen as it tumbled down its course.  The ice was so perfectly solid that we were able to climb it in places where there were adequate foot holds.  I opted to stick to the forested slopes on either side and made my way upstream along the long icy length of the falls until I reached a massive dead tree that had fallen across the river and had to turn back.

After taking the nearly surreal frozen falls in for awhile we thought we'd have to turn back, but then noticed that a path branching away from where we were had a sign indicating that it led up to Birobong peak.  We thought it odd as we had been told it was off limits, so we decided to follow the path uphill until we got to an inevitable gate or a ranger telling us to turn back.

No such barrier ever materialized.  In fact, it turned out that the ranger had more or less been advising us not to climb.  Later I understood the reason:  at the higher altitudes the snow, which was mostly nonexistent at the base, still lay thickly and slickly on the paths, making the going slow and increasingly precarious.  However, as we got higher further along, we found it more and more difficult to turn back and not see this peak--the highest in the park at 1288 meters.

Actually '0.3km as the crow flies' would have been more accurate.  Hiking up and down the steep saw-tooth ridge of a mountain can stretch a few lengthwise kilometers into an epic trek.

I wasn't told until after the trip had ended that the Chiaksan hikes were considered notoriously difficult in Korea, and indeed this was a hike that soon began to stand out from others I'd done.  The path became progressively narrower as we climbed, and for the most part steeper as well.  We had to watch carefully where we put our feet as in some places, particularly the most rocky areas, the hiking trail became little more than a stone ledge with a drop on one or both sides.  Ropes with knots at intervals among them had been slung down the hills in some places for climbers to pull themselves up by, and the growing volume of snow on the ascent made them necessary to keep from sliding back down the hill.  At one point we came to a boulder with a rope slung over it to grab and pull ourselves up and over by.  On both sides the mountain fell away into a steep slope, more of a drop, punctuated by trees.

The light was waning fast.  We hadn't thought we'd be making this hike after all and hadn't planned for it time-wise.  A few times we stopped at markers indicating our sluggish progress and weighed whether we should turn back--both in agreement that we had to be off the mountain by dark.  What we had thought would be a quick jaunt up the hill and then back down had turned into an epic hike along a vast spine of mountains.  After every increase in altitude more of a view of the stark, white, winter wilderness of the mountains around us, challenging the sky and dying sun, came into view.  The temperature plummeted.  Finally the trees around us were all covered in snow, and we knew that they had been the entire winter as well.  Up here the melt hadn't occurred yet.  It was like stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia.  At long last only two sets of wooden stairs, steps covered with half a foot of snow each, remained, and I heard a voice above crying out in triumph--two other hikers that we hadn't even known were on the hill were somewhere just up ahead of us.  They came into view a moment later--a man and a woman decked out in full mountain climbing outfit.  "Almost," the man announced to me and smiled, his expression warm with success against the bitter chill of the mountain.

One more flight of steps to go:  Brent and I hadn't eaten anything but a hurried fast food breakfast that morning, rushing to get on with our day; the ache of hunger and exhaustion was upon us, and had been for hours now, but stepping up onto the peak of the mountain, the world spread out underneath us, at last made it all worth it.  We high fived, snapped some photos, and then eyeing the setting sun now dropping quickly towards an opposite peak, and beginning to shiver in the icy wind, agreed:  'let's get the holy hell off this mountain.'

Three stone piles sit atop the peak, constructed over a period of years by one man, according to a plaque there.

Descents are always a breeze compared to the ascents, and this was no exception.  The places along the way I had found disconcertingly perilous before seemed friendlier now that I was armed with having already navigated them once.  In the end we reached the bottom just as night fell and had to walk back out of the park in the pitch black, lighting our way with the glow from our cell phone screens.  We caught the last bus back to Wonju, dead tired and starving, but happy.  The last adventure of our trip had come to an end.