I (accidentally) climbed a huge mountain...

So yesterday, I was planning to take it easy, go out to see Paraeso, a waterfall in the mountains in Southern Ulsan. (clear across the city from my place)

We ended up in Eonyang, the part of the city where we could catch the bus to the waterfall - and found out that there was no way to get to Paraeso, unless we wanted to "climb (Mt.) Sinbulsan, go across the mountain ridge, down the other side, and hike for about an hour..." - or we could have taken a very expensive cab. We decided to cheap-out and climb the mountain.

Now, you know that I don't pay attention to details sometimes, especially when I'm hatching a hair-brained scheme... these are the details I now know about Sinbulsan:
- it is one of the 100 Most Beautiful Mountains in Korea, selected by the Korea Forest Service (in a country that is 70% mountains, that means something)
- it is the second tallest mountain in Ulsan
- it is 1,209m

After hiking for about a kilometer, we did get to see a waterfall. It wasn't Paraeso, but...


If only we had realized at this point that the grade of this waterfall is not dissimilar to the grade of much of our upcoming hike! (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit)

Anyways, the hike was beautiful, steep, and at times a bit techincal for the likes of me. This was my first time using ropes to climb a mountain (the ropes were in place and secured on the trail). There were a couple of moments where it was absolutely concerning, I will admit... I paused for a moment while climbing up this vertical sheer rock face (is that what it's called? it was like climbing a wall that had no footholds, just holding onto a rope to pull yourself up). Bad idea. Do not pause and look down when you've got two feet planted flat on a 90-degree vertical sheet of rock, with no harness or safety equipment whatsoever. Talk about a moment of terror - the only thing keeping me from falling off the mountain was my grip on that rope...

This photo kind of shows the ropes, a random hiker is about to decend. Doesn't really show the steepness of the decent though!


Long story short, two out of the three of us made it to the summit (?) and sat on the rocks up top, just taking it all in. (The third decided to hang back(!) deciding the last part of the climb was too tricky/steep)

Here's footage from the top of the mountain:



beautiful, eh? Took us about 5 hours, up and down, but we weren't exactly speedy. When we finally got back to Ulsan (downtown) we ended up going for Indian food (!). It was quite good, but somehow not the same... and pints at mackenzies etc. Chris came down to meet Mark and I at mackenzies - it turns out he was climbing a "really f@ck%ng big" mountain, at the same time as we were, and funny thing here, it was a different side of the same mountain that Mark, Alex and I climbed. Ha ha ha. Clearly we all deserved beer. What Chris did not mention is that he'd hit the soju with his co-climbers before coming to meet up with us, which made for an amusing night for all. Somehow we all ended up at the WA bar, back in Hogye... somehow, we always do...

So much for taking it easy. Today, I'm only leaving the house to go out for dinner.