Jirisan NP - Day 1

When I first arrived in Korea and took a look at the many places we could go hiking, I found Jirisan National Park, the first and largest National Park in South Korea. There was this 45 km hike from west to east along the ridge that was the popular hike in the park which took most people 3 days. It was my idea to go over this Veterans Day weekend to take this hike on and so on Saturday we left Gunsan for Jirisan NP. A taxi ride, and 3 bus rides later we ended up at the Hwaeomsa entrance to Jirisan NP.

From this entrance, it was another 7 km or so to the Nogodan Shelter, where we were sleeping that night. For some reason I was really tired and it was a hard hike up to the ridge where the shelter was. We barely made it to the shelter before sunset, and when it set, wow was it dark. Thankfully Ben had bought us headlamps, which we got to use the next morning. The Nogodan Shelter,

was a pretty nice shelter. Of course, you still had to go outside to another building to go to the bathroom (which didn't have running water) and had to eat your food in another small building. for dinner. While the Koreans were heating up water to cook rice, and cooking spam and kimchi stew, we had MREs. Our meals certainly didn't weigh as much as all the pots, pans and burners that the Koreans had to carry. The men and woman had separate rooms that looked alike. You were crammed in like sardines, right next to each other, but it wasn't full, so there was at least some wiggle room. You slept on these wood floors. We brought pads, but it was still like sleeping on the floor. We had ear plugs, which were great and needed because people snored really loudly. Poor Ben had all the snoring men in his room. Again, earplugs were great. No showers though, so I felt pretty gross, especially after a day of hiking, but then again, so was everyone else.