Distance: 20.6km (697.4km), time spent: 9:16 (341:58).
Altitude (start / end / highest): 1031m / 770m / 1204m.
Weather: Clouds, then nice, but cold.
Quiet in the morning, the sound of rain is just a memory again. I notices quietly in my mind that I did not have the urge to continue walking yesterday, as I usually have on my rest days. That urge I do have now however. I eat breakfast while I am looking at an American TV series (NCSI). When I am packed and ready there comes a knock on the door, the host is ready to drive me back up to Guryongryeong, under the colourful trees.
From Guryongryeong Baekdudaegan is continuing up a wooden staircase.
Quiet up at the pass as well, the tables and chairs from the marked are standing empty next to the stele. Mr. Sang-Su Nam has now arrived either, which is a pity; I would have wanted to say goodbye. When the host at the minbak says goodbye, he presents me with a bag with food. A look inside the bag reveals that it contains a cabbage, two onions, and a small bag with candy, one apple, one beetroot, two tangerines and two bags of dry wipes. You get speechless by lesser gifts than this.
The vegetation are sparse and it becomes more apparent that you are walking at the top of a ridge, with a good path to walk on. On the way to Galjeongokbong.
The irony is not lost on me when I begin today's stage, which starts with a steep staircase straight up the hill, when I discover that there is a water source flowing just next to it. The sun is hidden behind some clouds in the beginning of the day; there were small glimpses up towards its domain at Guryongryeong. The continuing ridge reminds me a lot of the previous stage, it is the autumn that characterizes the trail now, but even though it is not a flat terrain the ascents and descents does not feel that hard. The path is good to walk on as well, even though the cloudburst of yesterday has left some traps behind. I do slip some times.
Up towards Galjeongokbong there is a tree blocking the path; it is customary in Korea not to move the tree off the path.
Galjeongokbong (1204m) is the highest point between Guryongryeong and Jochimryeong, whereupon the summit someone has made a makeshift stele: two casual stones with the name of the summit jotted down in Hangeul on them. And some slightly rotten wooden benches, still wet after yesterday, benches like these should mark the rest of the path today. It is also some kind of custom in South-Korea that you shall not change the natural surroundings in the mountains, therefore you shall not move any trees or rocks even though they are blocking the path. Something that explains why no one has done anything with a tree lying across the path on the way up to the summit, it looked like it has been lying there for a while.
The best view of the day came after having left Galjeongokbong. The compass needle is pointing towards the north, in the direction of Jeombongsan and Daecheongbong.
The trail is bringing me steadily northwards, from before I have already been able to see into the mountains of North-Korea. A cliché would be to say that I now are getting closer to the heart of darkness. It is still so that I often have a feeling of having walked towards the heart of the trail, deep inside the area or country that I am walking in, when I am in the final days of a walk. And the trail is undeniably going towards the border of the dark country to the north. There is otherwise very little that is dark here I am going now, it is a pleasant walk.
The gift from Healing House that I spent the night in, dry wipes, cabbage, tangerines, apple, sweets, beetroot and onions.
It is a pleasant walk between small picnic areas in the forest. At Wangseunggol Anbu the worn benches and stubs creates a corral, with a large space within the circle. I never cease to be amazed over the tombs I come to up here in the mountains; I pass another beautiful tomb on the path, what a place to have as a final resting place. Next picnic area is Yeongarigol Samteo and here I sit down to have lunch. Samteo means water source, but is in reality located somewhere below the path next to a trickling creek. With the blue background, it becomes a colour play in the forest.
Yeongarigol Samteo. A colour play in the nature next to a small water source.
I should have eaten the lunch down by the spring, but smart as I was, I left the backpack back up at the ridge. The gift from the hosts at the minbak meant that I could expand my usual noodle dish with additional goodies. I feel that I am having a sumptuous meal here under the peaceful sky of trees. In addition to the noodles, I gorge upon an apple, chocolate, some of the candy I got, pieces of the cake I bought, soju, coffee and a bottle of lemon soda (Chilsing Cider).
Ready to prepare my standard issued noodle dish with ham above Yeongarigol Samteo, with the gift from the people at the minbak in Myeonggaeri, I could supplement the dish with additional vegetables.
Baramburi Samgeori is the last picnic area before Jochimryeong, as in the previous places there is also water nearby. I however think that Roger Shepherd and Andrew Douch has confused this rest area with Yeongarigol Samteo, both in a picture in the guidebook and where the information board about how the forest is a green dam is located. That board is located here at Baramburi Samgeori and not at Yeongarigol Samteo, but it does not matter much. The reason of the description of the forest as a green dam lies in that it contains rainwater and slowly streams that water downwards.
A pathway of wood leads you over the trees just before Jochimryeong. Clear blue sky over the ridge.
Just before Jochimryeong, the path goes over a cool wooden pathway, which gives me a small feeling of walking on the treetops. It is also just before Jochimryeong that I encounter the first other people since I left Guryongryeong. The last metres goes between small trenches and steles before I reach the big megalithic stone that marks that I am finished for the day. Next to the monument, the Baekdudaegan continues from here up another pathway. Jochimryeong is the halfway mark of the whole Baekdudaegan through Korea.
Jochimryeong, with the megalithic monument and the wooden pathway that leads you further into the realm of Baekdudaegan.
A road goes through the pass in a tunnel; it is a little bit of a distance down to the road. I follow the road downwards, where there are buildings and farms spread around the road. A little haphazardly, I ask if there is an available room at a place, outside there was a sign, but I did not recognize any of the characters for minbak. It turns out to be a stroke of luck, they do operate as a minbak and they have an available room. In the evening, they invite me at a barbecue in the garden, inside a small outhouse. I think I am doing a bad job hiding that I enjoy and need meat, so they are barbecuing a lot of food. I do repeat myself when it comes to praising the Koreans, but I still have yet to meet some that are not nice and friendly.
In Olleh House below Jochimryeong, I was invited to a barbecue in the evening, in an outhouse outside the place I stay at.
The place I am staying at is called Olleh House. Olleh is some kind of tree, but is also the name of a Korean telecommunication company (olleh is as we know hello backwards). I can definitely not complain about this day either.
<- MyeonggaeriHangyeryeong ->
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