Return to Hell Mountain

This time, we were stronger than before.  The days since Busan were much faster, more productive (though inexplicably, the weeks passed just as quickly as last time, back when it seemed every other day was a rest day or sick day).  We could do more miles with fewer problems, we were smarter about staying out of the rain.  We picked only the best campsites, got more sleep, spent less money, shopped more efficiently, ate better, were better prepared.

Somehow that didn’t make Hell Mountain any different from last time.  The giraffe-print sidewalk was still impossibly steep and coming apart in pieces.  There were still cyclists pedaling up this monster that we could only push up: young college kids, middle-aged moms, grandparents even (though it’s worth pointing out that none of them were carrying violas).  The grade was still a laughable 13%, which probably would have meant something if we hadn't seen gentle slopes marked as a 15% grade and sheer cliffs marked as 5%.  The manure factory was still doing brisk business, seasoning our bitter curses and buckets of sweat with an otherworldly stink.

"I hate this," I said after thirty minutes of pushing.

"Blarrrgh," Jenn agreed.

"At least this time I didn't forget my ukulele."

"Blarrrgh."

At the top of the mountain, there was a congregation of old men and ladies, all clad in flashy new lycra cycling clothes, all of whom had evidently pedaled up the whole mountain.  They laughed as they read our sign while we politely tried not to die of heart failure right in front of them.  One gruff old brute beckoned for us to come over for a photo with him.  We obliged, and after the photo was snapped he started explaining something to his friends; all we could understand was "Foreigners."  He talked about us for a few minutes, and we heard the word, waegukin (gaijin in Korean, essentially) tossed around several more times by the curly-headed ladies.  No one deigned to ask us any questions, though one of the ajumas did give us a big bag of homemade banana chips.  After we had rested sufficiently, we were down the mountain again, our brakes squealing our departure into the cliffs and pines, a solitary voice from behind shouting, "Fighting!"

Before long it had grown dark again.  Hell Mountain was exactly as terrible as we remembered, but it did seem to take up less of our day this time.  Just as it was getting too dark to safely continue, the Travel Gods dropped a beautiful roadside park in front of us.  We proceeded with our usual routine: we played a little music on the ukulele and viola, then set up our stove to cook some dinner.

Yes, it's supposed to do that.  Sort of.

It bears mentioning that in addition to being a proficient world traveler, a proud amateur blues musician, and an all-around scruffy-looking nerf herder, I'm also a damn fine cook.  While it's been tough having to do all our cooking on our one lonely little stove (man, do I miss fresh bread), I've still been able to whip up some excellent dinners from time to time.  Pasta with red sauce and anchovies, vegetable curry, ramen, Chinese noodles, yakisoba, tuna salad, pasta with white sauce, kimchi quesadillas, pasta with sauce of an indeterminate color: I can do it all.  Well, all of the major noodle-based dishes, anyway.

Just as I switched off the stove and we began wolfing down our chanko nabe, we heard a metallic ting come from somewhere in the dark woods around us.  We put down our chopsticks and listened: there was singing as well.

"I don't think I like the movie we're in," Jenn said, laughing nervously.

"It's probably...uh...maybe a temple somewhere in the woods down there?" I suggested, and we slurped our soup and tried to believe it.  The woods echoed with chanting now, whistly voices carried on the woods and filtered through innumerable spiderwebs.  Gongs, maybe, cymbals or bells and a steady thump that we hoped was our heartbeats.

When we finished the last of our dinner and set up the tent in the shadow of the roadside pavilion, I caught sight of something across the river: though it was almost too distant to see, especially viewed through the pine boughs, it appeared that there were figures dancing in a circle and beating drums on the unlit grass.  The singing must be coming from there, we decided, and relaxed slightly.  If it was indeed some manner of religious ritual, at least we were probably too far away to be in danger of human sacrifice (or worse, being asked to dance with them).  The voices and drums dropped away not long after we zipped our tent and instantly fell into sleep, though the forest seemed to sing and chime long into the night.

Can you spot our tent in this picture?  Oh man, you can?  Crap, start packing up, we gotta get outta here!

Jenn and Harry Go to Hell (Again)

We panted, pushing our bikes up and up and up.  Surely we had traveled more vertical miles than horizontal ones by now.  I looked back: the road stretched dizzyingly far behind us.  If I dropped a bowling ball, it could have demolished a city (not that there were many cities around here, anyway).  The bike path had turned on us, transforming from a pacifically flat, perfectly-maintained bikes-only thoroughfare into a crumbling red stain on one edge of a highway, a suggestion to passing cars that there might be some cyclists about.  Our clothes were perpetually drenched with sweat, except when they were dry and crunchy.  Road grit had mixed with sweat and chain lube on our legs, making us look even more comically dirty than usual (imagine a Victorian street urchin crossed with Pig Pen from "Peanuts").  Implausibly, we were walking by what I can only assume was a manure factory: the stench of industrial-strength dung filled the air and poisoned every breath we took, sweat mixing with tears and rolling dirty, salty water down our faces.  Eventually, we passed a sign helpfully informing us that we were crawling up a 13% grade.  This, then, was hell.

Of course, we'd already been to a hell, but this mountain was the Hell.

Also, this Hell was a lot less whimsical than Beppu.  Though it did smell just as bad.

Up ahead, at what couldn't possibly be the top of the hill, two Korean cyclists plunged towards us at mach speed.  One of them whooped in excitement.  They smiled and waved to us, and we somehow mustered the energy for a weak thumbs-up.  If, as I've heard, the most popular activity in heaven is watching the suffering of the damned, then the most barbaric punishment in hell is surely the damned watching the saved watch them.

It was 5:30, already getting to be dark.  Under ideal circumstances, we would have already staked out a camping spot by this time, but as it was, we had no choice but to keep going; each free camping site poses its unique set of dangers, but "sleeping on a 13% grade" was one too far.  We rested, we pushed, we rested some more, at least as much as holding up an enormously heavy bike can be called "resting."  We were too tired to complain, too tired to curse.  We were even too tired, somehow, to talk about "Game of Thrones."

Somehow, the farther we got from the city (and all of the weekend riders whose taxes paid for the trail, no doubt), the more the trail started to fizzle into nothingness, becoming vague signposts and cracked blue lines that carried us onto tiny country roads, steering us past stooped old women working in their rice paddies who stared at us.  "Hey, we're as confused as you are, believe me," I thought at them.  We'd even been directed up another mountain earlier that day, which made this one more impossible.

Of course, with each successful mountain climbed, no matter how difficult the journey, come the twin joys of perseverance and oxygen deprivation. 

That was hours ago, and this mountain, this steep, crumbly, empty, stinky mountain wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.  Much like us.

At last, inevitably, we did make it to the top of the mountain, just as it was getting too dark to push on.  What awaited us there, apart from some very unimpressed-looking sport cyclists in electric-white lycra, was the tiniest of rest areas, a scant few square meters of wooden planks and bolted-down benches.  The prospect of camping on such a tiny spot filled us with apprehension.  Perhaps it would be best to push onward?  The bottom of the mountain might provide some green space, maybe even somewhere we could stake down our tent without being seen by every passing car?

As we considered, I felt an odd nagging feeling.  The dread worsened as I tried to puzzle it out.  Had I forgotten something?  I scratched my back, noticing that it was drier than usual, and then it hit me.

"Shit.  Shit.  Jenn?"

"Yeah?"

"I forgot my uke again."

We sat on the benches and thought it over, trying not to panic.  There would be no hopping on the subway to pick it up in a safely locked apartment.  Neither of us could remember if I had left it at the store where we stopped for instant ramen, on top of the mountain, or at our free campsite that morning.  At the latter two, it would almost assuredly be gone by now, taken by thieves, turned in to the police by well-meaning passersby, or stolen by crows (I wasn't ruling it out).

Then I had an idea.  I checked the photos we'd taken on the last mountaintop:

Why must I insist on wearing a T-shirt under my T-shirt?
Oh, wait, that's my pasty white flesh.

Sure enough, there it was, strapped to my back.  That means it must have been left behind at the strange little general store.  Which was, naturally, back down the mountain a ways.

There was nothing else for it.  There would be no climbing that mountain with all of our stuff again, so I had no choice but to unstrap everything, leave it in Jenn's capable hands, and fly back down the mountain, stuffless.  I tore down the asphalt, passing the sports cyclists who'd scoffed at us going the other way, and before long, I was at the bottom, pedaling madly along the riverside path.

Meanwhile, Jenn took photos of the mountains.

I tore down the gravel-strewn path, screeching to a stop at the odd picket fence that surrounded the store/restaurant/house.  Out of breath, I stumbled up to the door, where the curly-headed ajima who ran the place walked to the screen door, dangling the ukulele by its strap with one finger.  I thanked her profusely, using one of the four words of Korean I happened to know, then grunted back to my bike.  I checked the time: it had taken 10 minutes to retrieve the ukulele, where it had taken over an hour to climb that mountain.  I sighed deeply, trying to ignore the cramps in my calves.

I did make it back to the top, ultimately, just as it was definitely too dark to move on.  We cooked a quick meal of canned fish (for the fourth time in three days) and set up in the far corner of the shelter, hoping that our reflective tent surface wouldn't attract too much attention.  Where there's no grass, we're unable to stake down our tent, making the structure quiver with every toss and turn.  Every now and then a truck blew by, its lights growing brighter, its engine growing louder until it seemed right on top of our heads, then passing perhaps 10 feet by us.  If any of those trucks spotted us, I have no way of knowing, but we were uninterrupted for the night.

And Harry never left his ukulele behind again.  Ever.

In the morning, we had just enough water to make the last of our oatmeal for breakfast.  The steep hillside was covered in wild raspberry bushes, a few of which I harvested for the oatmeal.  We packed up and left just as our need for a bathroom became intolerable, and we barreled down the mountain to the next town just as the rain started to pour down.  There were definitely no camping spots anywhere past where we'd stopped for the night.