Hiking in Korea

Yesterday I decided to go for a little winter hike. I get tired of being in the city all the time, and thought that getting some fresh air and reconnecting with nature might do me some good. It has been a bit cold here, but only dips down to about 5 or 10 below at night, and in the daytime we're still getting around 5 above. The only snow I've seen so far has been a bit of wet stuff that fell on Christmas Eve.

I decided on Apsan, the main mountain containing the southern part of the city. It's not too big, and it's easily accessible, so I thought it was a good choice, being winter and all. Before I get into describing the hiking here, I should mention the hiking that I'm used to at home. My favorite place in the world to go hiking is in Waterton National Park, a well kept secret in the Rockies in the southwestern corner of Alberta. It's small, but has some pristine spots, and most of the tourists either go to Glacier National Park, which is just to the south in Montana, or to Banff, which is a couple hours north of Waterton. When hiking in Waterton, you can always count on a few things. One is that you probably won't see that many other people, even on a busy trail in the middle of summer. Another is that you will rarely, if ever, come across litter along the trail. Finally, you are sure to see wildlife along the way, whether it be deer, bears, birds, sheep, or squirrels.

Hiking in Korea is a different story altogether. In fairness, I was hiking at a very popular mountain which sits just on the outskirts of the country's third biggest city. Having said that, it's still an entirely different experience. For starters, there is a lot of pavement, some for the "hikers", and some for service vehicles to be able to get up to the tops of the mountains to service the plethora of cell phone towers that mar the higher summits. There is also a cable car that makes frequent trips to the top of Apsan for those who are not inclined to walk up, which somehow seems to cheapen the experience for those who actually hike to the top. And regardless of whether you choose to walk up by a paved pathway or a less common trail, you are bound to find all kinds of garbage along the way. It quickly becomes apparent, too, that any wildlife that may have lived in the area have long since left.

The hikers that I encountered were something else. Judging from their outfits and gear, I figured they were all training for an assault on Everest in the coming months. Expensive gear and backpacks and rugged trekking boots were standard. Ice axes were not uncommon (I found a dusting of snow on the north side of the mountain, but I really had to look to find it), and many of the would-be mountaineers had their socks pulled up (over their pants) to their knees, like Swiss alpinists wearing lederhosen. But they don't hike like Swiss mountaineers; they wander the trails en masse like Swiss sheep. And despite the seriousness of their gear, there were still some great ironies, like those with bearbells on their packs, or the dozen or so different hikers who were listening to their portable radios as they meandered along the trail. I was trying to get away from civilization, and they wanted to bring it along with them (and share it with everyone else!)

But I was there to relax, and relax is what I did. At certain points I looked out across the valley and imagined what it must have been like before it was inhabited, which was a very long time ago. And despite the lack of wildlife, I came across a beautifully colored ring-necked pheasant, which was a pleasant surprise. Some of the hikers I met were very kind, offering to take my picture when they saw me awkwardly trying to set the timer on my camera to take a photo of myself at the summit of Apsan (read: ugly cell phone tower). I was also impressed with the number of elderly people on the trails. It seems that in Canada we revere the elderly who pursue any form of physical activity, but here it's just a way of life. I think it's admirable either way.

At the end of the day I returned home tired but happy. I hadn't had the experience that I thought I would, but I had definitely had an experience. And really, isn't that what living in a foreign country is all about?