The March4/5 Hike: Wolchulsan National Park

Jiwon has been nagging Chang-dae, our hiking leader, to organize a hike to Wolchulsan, a national park in the southern province Chollanam-do. He obliged so on Friday, March 4th, after some beer at the Micro Pub Chris, Clare, Jiwon and I joined the rest of the hikers who were already gathered around a school bus rented for the trip. Our party consisted of: CD, Chris, Jesse, two new Korean hikers whose names escape me, Clare, Jiwon, Andrea, Agnes and me. I have been feeling a lot under the weatehr lately and I would not have gone on this hike had it not been Jiwon's last before leaving Korea.
We traveled all night in a very uncomfortable bus with some people freezing and other roasting. I was in the freezing camp sitting next to the door that could not be closed properly. At about 4:00 am we arrived to our minbak {guest house} that looked quite nice. The room for the ladies was quite small but it had beautiful traditional duvets in very very bright colours. In the morning we used the dining room and drank instant coffee managing to seriously offend the attending ajumma. The weather was quite nice, sunny and almost balmy. We all agreed that we chose perfect weather for this hike. Little did we know what lied ahead of us...
We bought crampons for " just in case."
The beginning of the hike was quite peaceful, a bit on the steep side, but nothing unmanageable. As we were reaching higher altituted the weather started to change. It became quite windy. When we crossed the spectacular Kurim Bridge (The Cloud Bridge) CD said "it'll snow soon." The minute he said it it started to snow! In no time we were moving through a blizzard. The wind was quite strong and everything was milky white. Numerous steep stairs and rocky inclines later, as the weather was getting more and more treacherous, CD, worried about a new hiker who didn't even wear a proper jacket and whose face was beet red, and about Jesse who wore sneakers and had no crampons (!?) decided to take a short cut down to the valley. The descent was quite challenging as it was slippery with snow and ice and as we couldn't really hold on to the railings and ropes - our hands in wet gloves just slipped off the railings. I am usually one of the "chickeniest" hikers, being afraid of heigths, falling, hurting myself... Strangely on this hike I didn't feel scared at all. Perhaps being sick makes me braver?

As we were going down the mountain, the weather was getting better, sunnier, warmer so that the walk close to the foot of the mountain was quite pleasant: beautiful evergreen trees with thick shiny leaves half-hidden by snow, a brook murmuring under its melting ice cover, even birds chirping.
In front of the restaurant where we ate takdori tang ( a spicy chicken "goulash") a red camelia tree in bloom and a friendliest little puppy seemed to greet us in the friendliest of ways. How idylic!.
With our food and drink reservoirs replenished we hopped on the bus again. The ride back to Seoul was much more pleasant. We watched a couple of movies or just vegged out simmering in our own juices, satiated, exercised, content...
After arriving to Seoul a few of us proceeded to my house and had a nice quite time snacking on straberries and sipping sake and beer, enjoying our last "hiking club" moments with Jiwon.
I will definitely go back to Wolchulsan in the summer or spring. It's a spectacular mountain, but for half of our hike we couldn't see anything through the milky whiteness of blizzard. What an adventure!