so my weekend went a little bit Bear Grylls style, without the isolation not been to far away from civilian life, despite the encroaching mountainous terrain around here it does beg to climb these mountains and I did do with style this weekend, narrowly avoiding death along the way. Saturday turned out to be more of a training run for me, more of a slog for some of my fellow companionship that I held going up Chulson mountain in Indong, Steve (older guy) seemed to have difficulty keeping up with the pace as anyone would do at his age, but its the first spring dayin Gumi so far and keeping me out from the cold all three of us decided to go up this short mountain near the paint baling course, for 2 hrs. We met up with our gang at the materialistically named "cafe benne" in downtown Gumi feeling like I was back at home drinking coffee with our friend Ben and not really getting much sun, as it is in England. Sun came out this afternoon and was much energizing as its was draining from the warm glow even on a April afternoon, many Koreans were about in full force. The following Sunday I decided, upon a surge of inspiration from doing this Hike to go one step further, going into the wild Bear grylls style, armed with a pair of running shoes I set off from my town towards Gumo mountain, not forgetting I had a night out that night and leaving around 1pm headed towards Gumo mountain. The day was hot, by 2pm the sun was in full force bringing hellish hot air you could feel the warm almost tropical heat from SE asia brought to the land of Kimchi, trying to climb this with weather like this was much like a sweat house. I hiked over to Hyeongkogdong near the Gumo mountain trial start, came out at a road with many korean's allover looking like bright lollipops in there brightly coloured jackets armed with sticks and hats to protect their fragile skin from the sun, in order to maintain their white complexion, who says a sun tan is not good for you, these korean's need a bit of Vitiamin D in them. I reached the start of Gumosan, headed up into the clouds and reached the summit 979m high in less than 1. 20 mins felt like the powerade had kicked in and was doing its job to some extent. I was spured on by the thoughts of eating sausages and a nice meal as I was at a half limb in my body was in need of nutritional fruits.
It became apparent how long I had been going for, and regular rest stops were becoming more frequent as I reached closer to the top, some korean's kept me going. 4;30pm I reached the top of this beast and a pit stop was needed to devise a plan to get down, I knew I wanted to come down via the most direct way and as bear grylls would do things I felt the need to replicate some of this, I decided to take the route towards Buksam over the other side of the mountain, (in actual fact I could see Otae dong from the top), despite this I somehow managed to get lost along the way, crossing death slides and 100m drops enough to rattle any lone rambler, with my mind in set, I took the path and headed into the abyssal unknown not sure if I would get home in time for sunset or have to sleep up here that night, live off the land. The path was more than clear to get back, at some points it did seem to dissenter into nothing, as did my hope of getting off here. I got hour into the decent and came across a path with sloping sides it was clear i was not able to get down this slide without the rope in front of me that was laid down for you to get down 10m, seemed danger was part of the plan i think, tho I didn't plan danger to come into the plan, made my way down the slope and got back on the path of no return. It seemed likely at the time that I might not make it down with me being up so high, but quickly the path showed me some mercy and a sign for temple or something appeared I took this path, unknown to me I went down, slowly lowering my center of gravity to avoid going to my death about 2 meters to my side a 100m death slide awaited me and I took a rain check with unease of knowing how solid the path was. Came to slipping almost at some parts going down the path as it was as steep going up as it was going down, the latter being being the harder, more weary looking path that did punish you if not careful with footing and slowing down. I was around 500m from the base i could see some temple in the far distance, but still i had long way to go before any kinda civilian life i would come across. The path came to a point in which i had no option but to slide down on leaves which I could not see the ground below weighed through the leaves i almost slide out of control down the rocky Plataea managed to grapple a strong tree root avoided grazing myself in process, as they say what comes up must come down. It was the slowest part of the climb coming down, as the path become more traitorous and my trousers looked like they had been pulled through a hedge by a horse rampant with fear, like a jokey in the national who thinks hes done it, but then like hope turned to fear of guessing what could of happened. After the handicapping of the terrain the path appeared again, I was back in the fast lane still calumnious about the imminent dangers of the height i was at. To cut a long story short, I reached the lower shelf of the plain, and the path ended at the base of the Gumo trail, a huge billboard appeared in front of me showing where i was and where I had gone wrong. I reached flat ground, i.e concrete and the soles of my shoes had taken a beating and felt very strange to be walking on solid ground, made my way to the temple and was greeted by the monk not sure male or female. She or he, tried to give me direction back to my home, i was kinda confused, but managed to walk the short distance 3 km to Buksan Eup, which would eventually take me to civilization and back to my home. I returned home to rejuvenation and took my shoes off which felt like relishing a beer when you finish work, this was no ordinary hike this was the hike to end all hikes, Bear Grylls style-Born survivor DW.
