There has been this lingering demon in my head since about a year ago. My friend and I had made it to 설악산 (Seoraksan) National Park in South Korea, and we were trying to figure out the best hiking that we could get in when we ran into a Canadian girl who said she had done this loop in about eight hours. It was the only loop trail, because the trail everybody traditionally took was straight up 대청봉 (Daecheongbong) and then came back the same way. My friend and I are anything but traditional. What we did, however, fail to take into account is that this young female was born and raised in the mountains, spent every weekend in Korea at another national park climbing as many mountains as she could. My friend and I spent every weekend getting sauced and climbing very low hills if we did anything—another longish story. At any rate, that climb took us (precisely as the KPS times told us it would) around 12 hours. It hurt so bad it is almost incomprehensible to think about. There aren’t even any Koreans who are crazy enough to do that. They stay in a hut about halfway through (well, it’s more like two-thirds of the way through).
I have this mildly sadistic challenge streak inside me, and I wanted to know if it could be done better, faster, and with less ache. I trained. I went back. These are the notes I took:
I had intended, during the course of my hike yesterday, to keep notes and give an accurate description as possible to what one encounters on what I call “The Monster.” What follows is basically an hour-by-hour transcript of the bastard.
Some words of advice: realize that this route is VERY dry. At the top of the mountain—for basically six hours—there is no potable water. In other words: BRING WATER… lots of it, because, like I said: dry, arid, and painful at the top. Second piece of advice: it is twelve hours, and you’ll need plenty of food. You’ll need a fair bit because you’ll need hourly snacks and something significant every four hours or so. Third, do something to train beforehand. It will help, even though you’ll still definitely feel it. Fourth, invest in some proper hiking apparel because attempting this route in jean shorts and t-shirts WILL result in very uncomfortable rashes—in places you might not imagine.
Okay, the first hour takes you through 소공원 (So Gong-won)—the park at the base of the mountains). The entrance fee, as of 2010, is a staggering 2500 원—the equivalent of about two dollars. The park itself is nice. There’s a tourist motel inside of it. As of this year, there is a bunch of trees whose claim to fame is that there has been a restaurant under its shade for 200 years. There’s a garden. There’s a giant statue of Buddha. You can take a cable car—but get there early for this as it fills up extraordinarily quickly. There’s a trail to a waterfall.
Your trail rambles past all of this and past a couple of restaurants deeper in the woods. Finally, you come to 비선대 (Biseondae)—a rock, a restaurant, and the crossroads. The trail to 대청봉 (the previously mentioned peak) is to the left. It’s 10.8km away and the backwards version of what I’m describing. To the right is about 10 minutes of moderate incline. At this point, the 1st hour is over and you can choose to go see the monk who lives in a cave on the side of the mountain (to the right) or continue up the trail to the left. The main advantage of the cave is that it affords one of the greatest views of 설악 (Seorak) Valley, and the main disadvantage is that it adds about 30 minutes or an hour to your ordeal. Understand that from this point, the next three hours are essentially ascension. There are brief respites here and there, but for the most part you must keep in mind that you’re going up a mountain in Korea, and what better way than to throw down millions of stone stairs and walk straight up that fucker.
Anyway I should make a couple of important points. The 2nd hour (as in the hour moving away from the cave) is probably the hardest. It just keeps going up. In the third hour it is possible to get some spring water, but ONLY if it has rained recently. If you’re desperate, there’s usually a trickle you can get something out of. The fourth hour has a more reliable spring, although still touch and go if it hasn’t rained recently. It also begins to let you know what the KNPS classifies this particular (ahem… 2-day) hike as a hike/scramble. It’s dry and rocky at the top, which means that you’ll be doing some “scrambling” over bits of mountain.
Take a break and assess yourself. Get a bit to eat, because after four hours you’ll be at 마등령 (madeungneung). The KNPS says its 1327m. If you’re fatigued, just turn around and walk the three hours out. Seven hours is already a helluva long hiking day and there is nothing to be ashamed of in it. If you feel up for it, just keep to the trail at the left. The next five hours are a great mix—and by great I don’t always mean good. Essentially, what you need to keep in mind is that you are walking along the ridge of the mountains. This means two things (at least): fantastic views, vistas, and geological features; and walking over mountains that range from 1300m to 1200m. In other words: in order to get from view to vista to geological wonder you will have to do steady alternation between ascending and descending, sometimes significantly. After a steady descent of 20 or 30 minutes, you’ll find the corresponding ascent just around a corner. Three hours of this (after the previous four hours of steady ascent) has the tendency to make a body tired. So, the last two hours are psychological hell. There is a long descent at the end of the third hour, and you start to believe that you are going down in earnest. You start to feel relieved. You start to breathe easier. You start believing: that wasn’t so bad. Then, you turn a corner and start going up. “What sadistic bastard put this here,” you think, “but, oh well.” The you turn another corner and you’re still going up. You turn a third corner and you see an almost sheer scramble that terminates youknownotwhere: MERDE!! The main advantage you have no is “having come this far.” Either way is four hours—maybe six if you turn around—and it’s best to just press on. A little hint: baby steps are fine, and the knees prefer them to having to pull the body weight long distances.
So, you take another forty minutes of ascent in stride (as it were) and realize your situation. It hurt psychologically and physically, but you’re heading back down now and everything is going to be fine of course. Not on your life. You got more ascent yet to come. Essentially it is only the last 30 minutes of this five-hour section of hiking which are pure descent. 희운각 hut awaits the weary traveler with foresight enough to make a reservation. Otherwise, you head to the right and three hours of walking down steps made of stone or metal. A recommended 2-day hike is what I have just described, mated with a stay at the hut, then an ascent of Daechoengbong the next day.
However, since that’s not what we have decided to do, I recommend that you take this ambling, non-strenuous section of the hike—which follows a river all the way back to the park—is: take your time. If it gets to be after 6 or 7 and you’re near the rock that was crossroads, take the opportunity, break the rules, and jump into the crystal clear river. It’s cold, clear and perfect for a body aching from (by now) 10 hours or so of hiking. At the very least, find a place to put your feet in.
The most enjoyable part of this section of the hike is watching the river trip and fall and create pools that look delicious bare are made inaccessible by… factors. After 2-3 hours of river-watching and steady heading down off the mountains, you make it back to the rock. Keep in mind that you still have a one-hour walk to the park gate, but after what you’ve been through, it’s like a walk… in… the park. The beauty of 설악산 is its relative closeness to society (Koreans would have it no other way). If you’re staying in a motel, you can just stop at a restaurant on your way back. If you’re camping, you can pick up some beer, soju, or (and) maggeulli and spend the evening—which will be very short—over a couple of drinks and grub. Sleep will be easy to come by.
Either way, the images your brain will be processing at the end of the day will be: mountains in the distance, sparsely populated with foliage, that look like great bowls of ice cream topped with chocolate syrup; three and four level waterfalls emptying into deep pools; vast expanses of mountain range that seem to dance waltzes with the imagination; never-ending trails of rock stairs that have been conquered; scrambles over treacherous mountain-adz tops that you realized would have maimed you had you slipped; and finally, what is possible for humans to do in a day.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
lethargy
The last few weeks have seen me in a noticeable state of lethargy… in a way. I am not entirely sure that I can even really call it that, because lethargy for me still involves doing quite a lot. I still manage to do quite a bit of reading (FINALLY finished Hume’s tome), study the Korean language, go to the gym, play the guitar, and go for four-hour training walks (I’ll soon be hiking). I suppose that what I’m really talking about is the fact that I haven’t done a whole lot of writing lately, and this is largely because all that reading, exercising and studying is just such a part of my daily/weekly routine that I find in them only the pleasures that one usually associates with those things that are solid and reliable. The fact that I haven’t written much lately is a sign to me that A) I have been living too much in the future and planning my return to the states (which I necessarily wish to keep somewhat secretive, and if I write about it, it’s not very secret is it?)
B) I haven’t had a whole lot to write about. Which is both true and untrue because I believe that there is ALWAYS something to write about; however, what I’m experiencing at the moment is a re-surgence in my sex life which I have always had a hard time writing about because of modesty and respect for the nature of that act.
All that being said, not enough people write about sex in such a way that does it justice. I’m afraid that “Marko, breathing his hot breath on her heaving bosom was enough to send shockwaves of desire through her body. His gentle caresses and strong, firm but soothing voice had caused a need in the pit of her being that could be satisfied by only one thing. She grabbed his ebony hair and let him know what she wanted.” just doesn’t quite do justice to something that can be of such great import.
I had a girlfriend for seven years (essentially), and for the bulk of that relationship it was long-distance. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what two college-aged students who would go for long periods of time without each other would do when they finally got together. Perhaps the best word for it was frenzy. Usually they’d only have about two or three days together because of the restraints of school or work and, for those of you who have experienced something like it, that’s generally a good amount of time to spend doing basically that one thing. After that, the spirit might be willing, but probably not, and the flesh will be spongy and sore. However, it is as a result of sessions like those that I learned a lot about what IT means.
I think that I have actually been blessed by the fact that I am not an excessively pretty person because that meant that I didn’t get to experience a lot of one-night-stands. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I have been in Korea that I had that hollow experience, and I can say from experience that it is much more fulfilling and dignified to have the experience of the body with somebody you care deeply about.
It seems highly probable that I’m just a big softy and that my parents raised me to be respectful of women, but two of my favorite things are spooning and—dear god I wish it had a more manly name (maybe I should make one up)—pillow talk. There is something about the intimacy of the act that seems to permeate everything that goes from the build-up, through the act itself, and it seems like the only appropriate finish is the intimacy of touch-to-touch and close conversation. As a matter of fact, it was precisely when these things stopped happening that the previously mentioned relationship started to fall apart.
I’m also beginning to see that there are a couple of different possibilities for significant kinds of physical intimacy. Almost everybody that’s had an opportunity to get drunk with somebody they love has experienced the kind of alcohol-fueled madness that results from what starts as gentle hand squeezes under the table or soft skin caresses that nobody sees. It can be wild and passionate and one helluva lot of fun because it so often feels like the primal call of nature: I need your body. I don’t care how intelligent you are or how funny. Right now, I want your body. This is the urge (not always accompanied by drunkenness) that affects those dealing with even low levels of satyriasis and furor uterinus: a pure desire to slake the physical thirst that wells up in all of us; however, in the bulk of the population this thirst peaks its head out only periodically.
Another kind of physical intimacy that is possible occurs when two people want to illustrate, using the body, how important they are to each other. This shouldn’t be overlooked. I have often considered that there are a lot of triptychs out there (conscious, subconscious, spirit; father, son, spirit; guardians, managers, workers; etc), but I think that the most frequently left-out aspect of all of these is the ground—thanks Heidegger. Without an earth, there can’t be humans. Without humans, does the concept of god exist? Without god is there a need for heaven? Without the body, can there be a seat for the soul? One of Rudolf Steiner’s greatest ideas was that the soul is outside the body, but, unless I missed it, I’d like to think that it doesn’t just sit outside the body but permeates it, through and through, and extends beyond the confines of the body. Call it an aura, but I guarantee you that you have met somebody or been around somebody and felt them immediately. That’s the extension of the soul outside the body. It is during this kind of physical intimacy, where two souls are charged with the connection of intimacy, love, caring, and compassion that something different happens. The fulfillment of the physical need of the human body to release itself is one thing, to touch souls in this particular way is something that warms the entire being, from the consciousness to sub-conscious, from the soul to the body.
It could be argued that the accomplishment of this warming is what the kama sutra is about. Sure, it teaches you a lot of fun ways to go about doing something that’s already fun, but it could be argued that these are attempts to find the most pleasant and fulfilling way of satisfying your partner. Let’s all be honest and say that man-on-top-pounding-away is perhaps the most boring of all the potential positions. It is the remnant of a man-centered universe. It can be fun every once in a while, but variety is the spice of life, and that almost goes double for the bedroom. Get creative, not because it’s fun, but because it is an illustration of how much you want your partner to feel. It’s an illustration of how on fire your soul is to touch their soul in a meaningful way.
Sometimes, I think the most important moment in any relationship is the simultaneous laughter that happens during the act itself. It’s possible. It ought to be fun, and what’s more natural than to laugh when you’re having fun?
B) I haven’t had a whole lot to write about. Which is both true and untrue because I believe that there is ALWAYS something to write about; however, what I’m experiencing at the moment is a re-surgence in my sex life which I have always had a hard time writing about because of modesty and respect for the nature of that act.
All that being said, not enough people write about sex in such a way that does it justice. I’m afraid that “Marko, breathing his hot breath on her heaving bosom was enough to send shockwaves of desire through her body. His gentle caresses and strong, firm but soothing voice had caused a need in the pit of her being that could be satisfied by only one thing. She grabbed his ebony hair and let him know what she wanted.” just doesn’t quite do justice to something that can be of such great import.
I had a girlfriend for seven years (essentially), and for the bulk of that relationship it was long-distance. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what two college-aged students who would go for long periods of time without each other would do when they finally got together. Perhaps the best word for it was frenzy. Usually they’d only have about two or three days together because of the restraints of school or work and, for those of you who have experienced something like it, that’s generally a good amount of time to spend doing basically that one thing. After that, the spirit might be willing, but probably not, and the flesh will be spongy and sore. However, it is as a result of sessions like those that I learned a lot about what IT means.
I think that I have actually been blessed by the fact that I am not an excessively pretty person because that meant that I didn’t get to experience a lot of one-night-stands. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I have been in Korea that I had that hollow experience, and I can say from experience that it is much more fulfilling and dignified to have the experience of the body with somebody you care deeply about.
It seems highly probable that I’m just a big softy and that my parents raised me to be respectful of women, but two of my favorite things are spooning and—dear god I wish it had a more manly name (maybe I should make one up)—pillow talk. There is something about the intimacy of the act that seems to permeate everything that goes from the build-up, through the act itself, and it seems like the only appropriate finish is the intimacy of touch-to-touch and close conversation. As a matter of fact, it was precisely when these things stopped happening that the previously mentioned relationship started to fall apart.
I’m also beginning to see that there are a couple of different possibilities for significant kinds of physical intimacy. Almost everybody that’s had an opportunity to get drunk with somebody they love has experienced the kind of alcohol-fueled madness that results from what starts as gentle hand squeezes under the table or soft skin caresses that nobody sees. It can be wild and passionate and one helluva lot of fun because it so often feels like the primal call of nature: I need your body. I don’t care how intelligent you are or how funny. Right now, I want your body. This is the urge (not always accompanied by drunkenness) that affects those dealing with even low levels of satyriasis and furor uterinus: a pure desire to slake the physical thirst that wells up in all of us; however, in the bulk of the population this thirst peaks its head out only periodically.
Another kind of physical intimacy that is possible occurs when two people want to illustrate, using the body, how important they are to each other. This shouldn’t be overlooked. I have often considered that there are a lot of triptychs out there (conscious, subconscious, spirit; father, son, spirit; guardians, managers, workers; etc), but I think that the most frequently left-out aspect of all of these is the ground—thanks Heidegger. Without an earth, there can’t be humans. Without humans, does the concept of god exist? Without god is there a need for heaven? Without the body, can there be a seat for the soul? One of Rudolf Steiner’s greatest ideas was that the soul is outside the body, but, unless I missed it, I’d like to think that it doesn’t just sit outside the body but permeates it, through and through, and extends beyond the confines of the body. Call it an aura, but I guarantee you that you have met somebody or been around somebody and felt them immediately. That’s the extension of the soul outside the body. It is during this kind of physical intimacy, where two souls are charged with the connection of intimacy, love, caring, and compassion that something different happens. The fulfillment of the physical need of the human body to release itself is one thing, to touch souls in this particular way is something that warms the entire being, from the consciousness to sub-conscious, from the soul to the body.
It could be argued that the accomplishment of this warming is what the kama sutra is about. Sure, it teaches you a lot of fun ways to go about doing something that’s already fun, but it could be argued that these are attempts to find the most pleasant and fulfilling way of satisfying your partner. Let’s all be honest and say that man-on-top-pounding-away is perhaps the most boring of all the potential positions. It is the remnant of a man-centered universe. It can be fun every once in a while, but variety is the spice of life, and that almost goes double for the bedroom. Get creative, not because it’s fun, but because it is an illustration of how much you want your partner to feel. It’s an illustration of how on fire your soul is to touch their soul in a meaningful way.
Sometimes, I think the most important moment in any relationship is the simultaneous laughter that happens during the act itself. It’s possible. It ought to be fun, and what’s more natural than to laugh when you’re having fun?
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