지리산 (Jiri-san) Pt. 2

I like rocks!

Washing feet after a long hike

It's a little blurry, but this is the trail we followed last time that led to nowhere land

From atop

Nap time:)

Self-portrait

Cliche

Mmmmm snacks :-D

The clouds looked really awesome

The steep trail

More nap time:)

Only serious hikers have walking poles....wait no just all the Koreans! haha!

About 1/2 way up

Pretty flowers

The first snack time:)

Try number two. If you recall a couple of weeks ago we attempted to climb Jiri-san. It didn't really work out for us. So, yesterday we headed off again. This time we left the dog at home and followed the path that everyone was on. Let me just say it's a tough hike. It is the second tallest mountain in South Korea and the largest on the main land. There is another peak on the island called Jeju that is the tallest, we hope to go there one day. It was a cloudy day but not raining yay! It also turned cold on Friday so the bike ride there was quite chilly. Once at the mountain though we warmed up right away. Most of the hike feels like it's straight up. We only took a couple of breaks but because we got such a late start (we didn't leave home until 1pm) we didn't get to a good lookout until 4pm. We stopped there and relaxed and ate a snack. We didn't want to have to hike down in the dark so we decided not to continue to the top and headed back down the mountain. The way up was tough but at least you can take your time, the way down was sooooooo hard, you can't really stop too much because it's so steep. Not even halfway down both mine and Mike's legs were shaking with overuse, or maybe because we're out of shape. It only took about 1 hour to get down (2 hours up) which was good because that meant part of our ride home was in the light. It was very challenging but very worth it. Needless to say we will be going back again to try and make it to the very top, the trilogy will be here soon, hehe!