Gwanggyosan Mountain

September 29-October 1 Korea celebrated Chuseok, the biggest holiday in the country. It's been described to us as a Korean version of Thanksgiving. Many people return to their hometowns in the countryside to share food and stories and give thanks to their ancestors. 

Due to the high volume of traffic (everyone leaves Seoul) it's recommended not to travel, especially south. So of course we decided it'd be a good idea to travel an hour north to hike a mountain. Lucky for us the roads were clear going up and we just got to gawk at everyone stuck (for miles, and miles, and miles) going southbound.

We still saw people along the way but overall it didn't feel busy. It was a beautiful day to be out! 

There's a tradition of stacking rocks here. I still find it neat to find them when we're out hiking. From what I've read people do it for good luck. One source said there's a rock stacked for each wish.

Mike mapped out our hiking path based on geocaches along the way. We had a successful day of finding caches; 20 finds in all! Not sure why Asia's eyes are closed here but it's a fun look for her. :)

We had a really nice view from the top. It's such a contrast of city built up in-between the rolling mountains. We were so high up the people parachuting didn't seem so far away!

  

I had to remind Mike that not all 0.2 miles were created equal!

After spending hours hiking up the mountain I was really disheartened to learn that sometimes we had to go up to get down. I was not in the mood for any more inclines! We did one more intense rock climbing in search of a geocache and the view made it all worth it. We had an amazing 360 view. 

Mike's most dangerous cache climb!

This sign had Mike convinced that it'd be a fun endeavor to fly off the cliff. Why Korea uses cartoons for serious subjects (like road construction) I haven't figured out yet!  

Overall we had a good day out but it was much, much longer than anticipated. It turns out we just had a very ambitious hike planned and it ended up lasting 9 hours! Luckily we had just enough food and water packed for the day. It's the most we've ever asked of Asia and she proved to be an excellent long-distance hiker and had a blast the whole time. The minute we got in the cab to get back to our car she was of course curled up and sound asleep though. Our best planning of the weekend was that we gave ourselves Sunday to recover!