Travel: My 3.7km hike at Halla-san

This will probably be my last post on my Jeju trip during the Chuseok holiday weekend... I guess it gets boring reading just about ONE place.

For the life of me, I had a really good laugh on our second day there, as me and Ferby (not his real name) made our way up to Halla mountain ~ the tallest peak in Korea @ 1950m (only??). We only made it to 1700m at Witseoreum (윗세오름), as the rest of the path was closed.

Being the unfit people that we are, and also being short of time, we chose the shortest hiking route of 3.7km. This route starts at the west-face of the mountain at Yeongsil (영실). The trail was very beautiful, with lush greenery all around every step of the way.


Unfortunately though, due to the time of the year, and also the altitude of the mountain, it was foggy and rainy the whole time we were there.


So we bought wee plastic 'ponchos' on-sale for $3 at the entrance.


That's Ferby on the left doing his "I love my poncho"-dance in the rain. At that point, I was afraid he would turn gay on me!

Fact: Ferby isn't gay ~ he loves his womEn.

Anyway, we make our way up the hill, and around 1/3 of the way, lactic acid kicks in to the ol' legs and we start running out of breath.

Ferby catches his breath, and gives me that "I know I can finish this but I don't think I want to" crap...

So I show him the car keys, and gave him the motivation talk. As you can tell, he wasn't very pleased.

We move on...

OK, I admit... I wasn't all that tough either. This was me after ten minutes... Bummer~ Need to work out more at the gym!

Anyway, we walk, and things get better. I guess after a while, the lactic acid in the muscles wear off, and doing the rest of the journey became less taxing. Funny, but true.

Along the way, we spot the method that they use to reclaim the rocky surface. They have little hemp sacks filled with top-soil that they dump onto the rock surface. Eventually, stuff starts to grow off it, and roots itself into the rocks... Smart!

*Hey~ I'm not a friggin geologist alright! Things like this amuse me...

Reaching the top was a good feeling, finally after 1 1/2 hours!

We hang around for a while at the Witseoreum rest house for a 1/2 hour, and head back down. While up there, we spotted this...

Its a stretcher (my guess) used for transporting injured people or goods, up and downhill. We wondered for two seconds there, if it'd be feasible to start it up and do the lazy route down-hill...

Nah~ We needed the exercise.

In the end, we timed ourselves a total of 3 hours exactly for the whole trip going up, lingering, and coming back down to Yeongsil. Not bad, I must say, since today while talking to Mr. Kim from a counterpart company at work, he reckons that it usually takes 3 hours one-way!

How's that for a boost of the ol' ego! ;)