An early spring hike story
The inter-season between winter and spring is undoubtedly the least attractive in Korea. Trees still look dead and, as spring appears around a still far away corner, the rising temperatures bring an ugly amount of air pollution. Those two facts weigh on my motivation to go out and hike. Hiking with a mask really isn’t my favorite, without mentioning that covid forces us to wear a mask all the time already. But I don’t want to let that stop me either so I will tell you the story of what happened to me during a recent hike I thought would go butter smooth.... but didn’t quite.
Moonwon falls (문원폭포) in Gwanaksan is a place I just love going to because it’s fairly close to my home and it is a short hike so all in all it’s a perfect place to restart the body engine after a cold winter.
At this time of year though, the falls are a mere shadow of their summer self so I planned on hiking further to a peak that seemed, on the map, to lead to a short ridge (능선) made of 3 peaks, each slightly taller than the previous one. I love mountain ridges around Seoul because many don’t require climbing gear and yet they are a lot of fun.
My goal, as seen from the beginning of the trail, you can see the 3 peaks and the rock face leading to it on the right.
Also, I am planning on starting a hiking youtube channel and I thought that trail would make for a nice video. I finally set out mid afternoon because I was due to receive my new microphone just after lunch that day and I wanted to use it.
The trail is very expectedly uninteresting, brown, bare, leafless, greenless, lifeless. It will be a challenge to find compositions here but there is nothing like a hard challenge to revive creativity. So I kept walking up until I reached the waterfall.
Vegetation at this time of year is in hibernation, almost featureless. So finding moss, even a little bit, lifted my spirits.
This one is actually from near the end of the trail where the desolation of winter is slashed through by swords of green. I really like the intersecting lines formed by those mossy trees, they really emphasize the organic chaos of the area.
The falls are mostly asleep at this time of year, very little water flows down it. It is barely worth staying that long.
It looks more like a dirty stone wall preceded by a random mess of stray rocks… You’d never guess what it looks like in summer from just this picture!
It is barely enough water to shower in!
While letting my gaze linger on the pools on the ground I noticed some dark, goopy masses floating at the surface near the corners. After closer inspection I realized that those were actually thousands of frog eggs. I also noticed that dozens of frogs were waiting for them to hatch hiding among the leaves that carpeted the floor of the pools. A truly unexpected gift and frankly a rare sight of nature in a mountain that sees so much human activity year round. Those small brown frogs kept me occupied for some time, especially as I found more in other pools.
It still has a long time to wait before those eggs hatch, but nature is patient.
Shall we play where is Wally? How many frogs can you see?
After a while I finally looked up to see that the previously sunny sky was darkening slowly but surely, I had to press on or I would never be able to make it before the end of that day. From there however it got quite steep. Steepness isn’t really an issue in general but since I was filming myself I basically had to hike every pitch on film three times. That took time. Too much time.
When I arrived at the foot of the ridge the sun was already very low on the horizon, temperatures were starting to drop and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the top of that first peak before sunset. But I kept at it. Until I arrived on a big boulder with a magnificent view of the rocks on the opposite side of the valley and the weather station on top of Gwanaksan. There I recorded myself walking in front of the view, came back to the camera to check the video and I was surprised to hear, covering the sound of my steps of the rocks, a horribly tuned radio station program noise. I was actually worried it was military because the weather station nearby must have some military application. I thought if I just oriented my microphone away from the station maybe I wouldn’t hear it. I tried and the result was the same. I did not understand why my new microphone picked up that radio signal, I was cold, it was getting dark, there seemed to be steep stretches of rocks ahead of me so I felt like the elements were plotting against me at this point… Weariness took over, I gave up.
I had never turned back on a hike before so on the way down I decided I would come back the next morning to finish the filming and the hike. After studying, I found out that microphones can pick up radio signals under specific conditions and also cables can be responsible for that too! I had no idea! So came the next morning I tried my luck with a different cable and a friend of mine joined along for the hike. I promised him (and I believed) that we would be up and down within 2 hours… 2 and a half max if we’re slow at filming.
We headed up the trail, I showed him the frog eggs and the frogs, the empty waterfall (though we had already swam in it one summer) and we finally arrived where I had turned around the previous day. I tested the microphone and it turned out that the cable was indeed responsible! Great! Problem solved! We pushed on.
The ascent from here on was much more arduous than before, but that I expected. Using both hands and feet on close to vertical faces is the norm there so it basically was strenuous but great fun. Except for the fact that filming myself meant climbing up, down, pack and climb up again, the ascent went as expected.
A half alive-half dead tree across the valley. I hope it will survive but now it makes for an interesting subject.
It’s only some exerting time later that the path became less clear. What was clear though was that getting on top of that very steep rock face in front of us was the only way to continue and as for how to do that was a case of however works. So I took the lead, growing gradually more worried for my safety every step I took. The wind was blowing, there were no fencing, no rope and grips became scarce. Came a point were I could not find any grip at all and my footing wasn’t the most reliable on that featureless slope. It was very frustrating because I was only 2-3 meters below a flat area were people were taking a break. As I stalled and probably looked scared my friend, who was right behind me, suggested he would try his luck. He is usually a lot braver than me under such circumstances so I started letting myself down to make way for him. As I started doing that I heard a voice calling me from above our level. A man wearing military clothes offered to throw us a rope he had attached to an over hanging boulder. I more than happily accepted his offer and up my friend and I pulled ourselves, away from that scary wall of death! People on mountains around the world are always very helping and Koreans are no exception, without this generous man our story would have ended here, I am grateful.
Thanks to this kind rope man we could see small brave trees, constantly battered by the wind like this little guy. but also many others…
He told us it would only get easier from there on, no more gripless faces. That was a relief to hear, and an even bigger relief to confirm it. Now we could lay our eyes on the 3 peaks of the ridge we had targeted. Go. It was only real fun, in spite of the filming now and then. Scaling those rocks, in the sun and fairly strong wind and with a view is a favorite activity of mine, I would do it any day. Except… we had already been gone for 2 hours! We brought no food since we planned short and noon was already upon us. We were getting hungry and tired. So we sat in the sun, behind the first peak to have an energy bar I luckily brought and started again. We scaled the second and third peak only to discover that there were 3 more hidden behind! We weren't keen on scaling back that “rope face” so we had to continue. We knew we had to continue, not a shadow of a doubt went through our minds but the exercise was taking it’s toll on us. Our short hike was turning into a journey!
This one was on top of the third peak, standing proud above the three rocks that kindly retain water for it to drink.
Before tackling the new first peak we found a funny looking rock over a drop, so I had to sit on it. It is from that point of view that I discovered my second favorite tree. I knew right away I will come back many times in the future to photograph it under all possible conditions, but I wasn't ready to redo all the climbing every time!
My friend’s aunt named it “happy dancing tree with scarf”. I like that name so I’ll use it later when I post about it in the future.
Anyway! 3 peaks left! At a fork in the path we had a choice between scaling them or cheating our way through the forest till we came across the main path leading up the last peak (that has a flag). Tired, hungry and worried about how long extra it would take us to climb 3 more peaks, we instantly agreed on the cheat path! There, we met cute cats and crows and the path was easy going, a walk in the forest. We met the main trail on the other end of our cheat path and took it up to the flag peak. A last long staircase that finished to murder my thighs and there we were, at the top. There, we shot the last video clips, enjoyed the 360º view: summit of Gwanaksan, East Seoul, Lotte World Tower, Seoul Grand Park, Cheonggyesan, Gwacheon, Anyang, Surisan, Samseongsan… and between those, beautiful Gwanaksan ridges. The view was worth the effort indeed but at this point our tired bodies only longed for one thing: get back to the car. So we set down, not stopping anywhere the view might have been interesting, straight down. The descent was uneventful, just as we wanted it.
From the flag peak, the mountain’s guardian is looking over its territory.
In total, our ordeal took 4 hour and 51 minutes, total length of 6.1km (3.8 miles). The comparatively short distance to the hiking time will help you understand what a challenging terrain we happily faced. Regardless, I’d do it again because beyond the hike and the successful attempt, beyond the discoveries and the body vs mind exercise we created a memory.
Thank you for reading my latest novel long post! I hope it will have motivated you to put on your hiking boots and search for the natural beauty around you. Next time will be a more nature photography oriented post, I just need one more picture with blooming flowers to complete it.
I leave you the alltrails map of this hike if you want to take on the challenge, I recommend wearing grippy shoes in non-snowy weather and crampons are a definite necessity in the snow. If you don’t have a car you can walk from line 4 government complex gwacheon station (정부과천청사) exit 7. Also follow me on instagram @romainphoto_outside for more photography than I can blog about!
Feel free to leave a comment below and share my blog so that, one day maybe, I can meet you on a hike here!
A bientôt!
