Hike to Hallisan

OK, so the vacation from the vacation is over. Shay felt he was degenerating by the moment, so we packed our day hike bags, filled 3L of water and headed to Hallisan - the mountain that lies at the center of Jeju island. We started at 800m, and climbed steadily to the summit, located at 1970m.

Most of the way, we were covered with deep forest:

but at 1500m, some butterflies appeared.

so we stopped for lunch. Here is shay trying to explain how to eat the lovely rice triangles (without actually having the skill to open them...)

Almost there...

And finally, some views from the summit:

A beautiful crater lake was discovered at the top:

Along with some blisters and soar angle:

We had two options, either to climb down the way we came from, or to desecnd from another trail (about 9km) that went all the way down to 500m. We took the latter, and found spectacular views as well:

Toward 15:00, things started to get a bit foggy:

Near the finish line we found a nice bridge:

And look at this happy smile after we finished!

BTW, the hiking poles we got really helped! too bad we only got two of them.

But now we know what features we like and which ones we don't. Maybe we'll buy another pair in Seuol.

Oh, another funny thing we encountered was a small and weird track that ran along the entire mountain. We speculated that it is used to carry heavy loads to the top, and indeed, at some point we found the small car that is attached to it. It looks rather funny, like a rollercoaster with two bunk beds attached at the rear.