Sucker Hole...

27 May 2006

Seoul, South Korea

Gwanaksan Provincial Park

Sucker Hole Defined

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"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Herodotus chose his words well to describe our Gwanaksan outing today! Neither thunder nor rain nor lightning nor mud nor falling rocks nor sheer cliffs nor jagged, sharp undergrowth stays our attempt from the swift completion of Gwanaksan 4!

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We awake to cloudy skies, cool breezes and a slight mist of a rain. We wait a few hours, notice the sky appears to be clearing a bit as we can see a bit of blue and the rain has stopped. We decide to head out in pursuit of the one remaining cachebox on Gwanaksan that we have yet to attempt. Trekkie later informs me that this small bit of blue sky is affectionately known to aviators as a 'sucker hole'. "Now he tells me," I think to myself. ;) You think the weather will turn nicer and instead the cats, dogs and every other type of animal in existence finds its way out of the sky and comes screaming down on you--when you least expect it.

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This is precisely what happened to us.

We hopped on the subway for the 45 minute ride and then transferred to a bus to eventually reach our starting point. After our 'mega 12 mile outing' last weekend in the same mountain range that resulted in not finding a cachebox, we did a bit more research and honed in via metro bus much closer to our 'target' hoping to drastically whittle down the overall distance of the hike. This plan has us entering the mountain range by a dry riverbed stream between the two opposing 'higher' ridgelines instead of approaching it from the north or south that would involve another 'up & over' ascent through a ridgeline.

This peek through the tree branches where we 'broke through a saddle' between the two ridgelines reveals one of the lower 'perpendicular' ridgelines of the mountain we climbed over the previous Saturday.

We're making great progress on our trek and seeing some beautiful sights along the way. We notice the rhododendrons and azaleas that were blooming so prolificly last weekend are totally faded this day. We also revisit the wisteria and it is completely 'spent'--absolutely no hint of purple remaining on its withered buds. Boy--we certainly could not have timed last week's hike any better than we did--we were so blessed with the beautiful flowers then!

Along the way we know we need to reach a ridgeline to our north to reach our cachebox so we locate the 'upward' trail that appears to head in the appropriate direction and start forging away---up, up and uphill some more.

The gravelly, stony trail soon gives way to mostly steep and large boulder scrambling. Here is where the clouds start to pour in and we can see lightning and hear thunder rumbling off in the distance. We continue to forge ahead thinking, "we've come all this way..."

We eventually reach an intermediate summit of the ridgeline we were following and notice the much higher ridgeline we hiked over the previous Saturday to our south. It's now covered in rainclouds. The large communication towers and Buddhist temples that were so visible last weekend are nowhere to be seen--the clouds are that thick.

We continue up and up. Mostly rock scrambling now--some parts involving finding 'handholds' that just don't seem to be there. We end up using lots of 'cram your boots between the crevices in the boulders' approach to ascending. It seems to work. Where that doesn't work we reach for trees or bushes that might help give us that little 'extra' security to reach the new height. The rains start to trickle on us but we continue to forge ahead. A little rain isn't going to bother us, will it?

The raindrops soon become much larger. Lightning strikes rapidly approach much closer to us than is comfortable. The nerves are starting to kick in--we need to hustle and find this thing or call it off to seek shelter soon.

We soon reach an exposed peak where we think the cachebox might be but "no!" Then our trusty 'gadget' tells us, "It can't be here--instead, it's 150m to the east--over on that ridgeline instead!" What it failed to tell us is that there's a 200 foot drop deep ravine that separates us from our desired cachebox--and there's no way to reach it but to 'dogleg' another 2km around the main ridge over to another connecting ridge to reach it or we backtrack down the steep trail we just climbed up, cross the ravine somehow and then attack it from that angle. At this point, we realize we only have about 1-1/2 hours left of sunlight--so we opt for the backtrack and cross the ravine approach.

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That's where the rising waters, exfoliating rock ledges, gravelly trails turning into streams, tightly interlocking pine trees, cedars and juniper trees with sharp underbrush that always seemed to jab us no matter how we passed by them, lightning bolts rapidly appearing closer to us, all come into play. Somehow we attack the 'cliff', make it up to the opposite ridge and quickly secure our cachebox. It's the first time while hiking that we actually get excited when we see signs of 'humanity' such as soda can debris along the way--for that was when we knew we were approaching the 'real' trail and that the going would get much easier then.

By now it's raining cats & dogs. We're drenched, shivering, and muddy--but boy did we earn our 'treasure' today. ;) What you see here is the cachebox with nothing but a postcard and a handful of travel bugs that we brought along for the ride. Otherwise, our true treasure was the outing itself.

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We quickly descend the mountain, teeth chattering and completely drenched. Our socks are literally swimming in our Gore Tex hiking books. Jeans are so waterlogged they're twice as heavy. We're squeezing cups of water from the sleeves of our fleece pullovers. This must've been tropical storm rain!

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Along our descent we see a few other hikers heading down. One interesting thing we noticed, however, was a group of 5 men--all decked out in hiking/backpacking/overnighting gear heading up the mountain that we were descending. We greeted them beneath a pavillion where they were securing gore tex covers over their large backpacks. We inquired if they were overnighting it and they said yes. "Doesn't the intense rain bother you?" "No." He hands trkr an umbrella--not knowing that we already have 3 umbrellas on hand but we're so drenched at this point they won't do any good. "Are you tent camping?" "No--bee bee." Amazing! These men were heading out for the weekend, in this mad torrential downpour and bivouac-bag camping! Boy, have they earned our instant respect! We continue down the mountain, hop on the bus and take the long ride home--leaving large puddles everywhere we tread along the way.

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In the past 2 months, we've now logged over 30 miles of hiking around the Gwanaksan Mountains--in 3 outings. Including our previous letterbox 'planting' trek a year and a half ago increases that to about 36 miles. We have still only scratched the surface of this mountainous gem within Seoul's limits. Amazing! Too bad our time in the area is quickly coming to an end as we're leaving much of it unexplored. We will definitely miss this region. :(

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Herodotus did choose his words well in describing our outing today.

I'm sure he has a few more words to add to the description now.

Wonder if sucker hole has anything to do with it???

;)