The following weekend Sly and I decided to investigate the trail. We crossed the street and followed a little road past some stores selling outdoor clothing and some street vendors selling snacks and herbs and sure enough there it was: the trail head, plain as day. It's funny how you can pass a place multiple times but never actually see something until you look for it. And once you find it, it's obviousness makes it seem ridiculous that you didn't see it sooner.
Once past a small parking area and through a gateway, the path opened up to a busier street lined with all kinds of restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and more street vendors selling snacks, hiking equipment, water, pillows (???), and of course booze. I don't know what it was but for some reason these shops along the trail made me feel like, for the first time, like I was in a foreign country. At the same time, being on the trail, smelling the dirt and the pine trees, feeling the briskness of the day slap me in the face -- all felt so familiar; like being home.
We approached this trail without any planning or knowledge of where the path would lead, we figured we would follow it up the mountain and see where the trail took us. We found a map board of the trail and it confirmed what we had already planned: we were going to hike up the side of the mountain.
The first part of the trail was super easy -- wide and paved and flat. It led us to a park-like area with benches and picnic tables. We kept walking, past one Buddhist temple, then three more, past a huge over-sized playground swing beside the river, and then another Buddhist temple. After the last temple, it was all uphill and it was brutal. A total stairmaster workout.
HIking it super popular in Korea, and for many Koreans, dressing the part is equally as important as the hike. People wear head-to-toe matching high tech mountaineering gear complete with walking sticks, and matching hats. The older hikers also carry radios with them as they hike up and down the mountain, usually as daily exercise. In fact, there were probably more elderly people on the trail than any other, which is pretty baller considering the steepness of the trail. Meanwhile, Sly and I were dressed in whatever rag tag "athletic" ensemble we could scrape together as our stuff still had yet to arrive from storage.
The trail became steeper and steeper. We barreled up the mountain, fully winded and out-of-shape. After months of sedentary hotel living, our lungs and legs burned -- and we loved it. We passed an outdoor ampitheater where a group of older men were drinking soju, past hikers eating lunch along the smaller trail that ran alongside the river, past several natural springs, and then finally we came to some steps. "This is it," we thought. "We did it!" We rushed to the top, legs now on fire, and at the top, strutted around like we owned the place. For being the top it felt rather anti-climatic -- why was there workout equipment here? Who in their right mind would hike to the top of something, decide that wasn't enough of a workout, and then want to lift some weights? I drank some natural spring water using a plastic red hanging ladle. People stared at me like crazy. We caught our breath on one of the benches.
As I looked around I noticed a steep, rocky path off to the side. Probably just a side trail, nothing to be concerned about. Then I looked at the photo of the map I took with my phone -- yeah we still had a ways to hike. Wishful thinking I guess.
Up until this point the trail, while steep, had been mostly paved. After reaching the fake top the trail became more trail-like. We climbed up and over rocks and trees, through a pine forest, and finally reached the top. The real one this time.
The best part: there was a guy selling ice cream popsicles at the top! Genius! We rewarded ourselves with two over-priced melon-flavored pops and slurped them down as we continued on the trail to the summit of Mt. Sanseong.