Hike to Daedunsan, with stairways to (foggy) heaven

On July 26th we hiked Daedunsan.

At the begining of the trail we walked near, around, accros and in a stream of crystal clear water.
In Korea, as in Japan, the National Parks have marked trails going up, down and around mountains. And in both countries they insist on building rediculous stairs everywhere. So instead of climbing on good-old dirt and mud and rock you walk on cement or pavment or even metal bridges.

In this park however, they have managed to keep the pavments to a minimum and made the bridges and stairs into an atraction.

So we climbed at first through and by the stream



Maayan is chewing an energy bar and Shay is taking pictures of spiderwebs:


We met some bizzare worm-like creature only with an anvil-like head and bright yellow. Disgusting!

As we continued the climb we left the stream-bed behind us and got a nice view between the trees.

We suddenly heard screems from above us, and looking up, this is what we saw:

So we continued on up, looking for this bridge we saw from below and an half hour later....






At this point, the bridge is somewhat behind and below us, but if you look carefully, right above Maayan's head, you can see another bridge. This is infact a stairway above an even higher and deeper gorge, and about another half hour's climb from where we are here.

Zoom to the stairway:


But it started raining, and Mai didn't have her Jacket with her (big mistake) - So we split up - Mai to wait at the cable car station near the bridge, Shay to climb on up.

The second bridge was quite scary and unstable. It is about 30m high, and by the time Shay got there, clouds were everywhere. It was like climbing stairways to heaven!
Before the climb, one encounters this very important caution sign (read no. 3)



We assure you, Shay did not pass any drunks on his way up!



It was another 40 strenous minutes to the summit, and by the time Shay got there, everything was foggy and cloudy that nothing could be seen.
So, after going down (not via the bridges, since, as we discovered, they are only one-way...), we descended back to base-camp, and took the bus back to Jeon-ju.

Yet another boring day at the office.... :)