Bukhansan National Park

This past Saturday morning found Mike, Trevor, Rachel and I in a taxi outside the Suyu subway station, trying to pronounce "to the mountain over there" by pointing our fingers. If the cab had dropped us anywhere close to the trailhead we would have missed the dozens of outdoor gear shops and charming restaurants lining the road, so we were lucky, really. Suyu lies along the edges of Seoul's inner city mountain park, and melts from high rise apartments and businesses to much much more quaint dwellings, shops and kiosks. The smell of woodsmoke on a crisp bluebird morning takes me back to Alberta alpine mornings in a heartbeat.

We spent the afternoon scrambling towards Insadong, the park's most prominent peak. What looks like a small nub from my apartment in Nowon becomes a hugely impressive bulb of granite, hosting over a hundred climbing routes mostly multi-pitch. This could be considered Seoul's very own El Capitan! Once you get close to the rock you can see how much climbing would actually be required to reach the top. I hope to soon make ammends with slab scaling, as it appears that most of the climbs in Korea are of the smoothest variety :)

Mike, too wild to be harnessed, makes a desperate attempt for the summit. Luckily we managed to lure him down with granola bars and peppero sticks.