no use crying over spilled gorp

From Wikimedia Commons

This requires a little prior explanation. Jirisan, as I may or may not have mentioned elsewhere, is the oldest national park in Korea. Founded in 1967, it is named after the large mountain (1,915 meters tall, or thereabouts) within it. Jirisan is part of the Baekdusan Range, which extends all the way up to the Chinese border, and is known as "the spine of Korea."

The park itself contains not just one mountain but a whole bunch of them, connected by ridges and valleys. To hike the full ridge trail takes the better part of three days, as it's 49 kilometers from one end to the other. The highest peak is Cheonwangbong, but there are numerous smaller peaks scattered all about. There are also temples, shelters, a few campgrounds, potable springs, and (closer to civilization) numerous hotels and private houses.

Second, gorp is another word for trail mix. It's a ridiculous word, and I don't like it myself. But it's stuck.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because Jeff and I encountered consumed copious amounts of gorp this weekend, when we climbed Jirisan. Or tried to, anyway...we didn't have much luck.

I mean we didn't have much luck climbing Jirisan, not consuming gorp. That was no problem at all.

We had elected to reach the summit of Jirisan, the tallest mountain in the park and its namesake, located on the eastern edge of the park itself. Cheonwangbong, the peak, stood at about 1900 meters...a far cry from Gyeryongsan on Geoje-do at 566 meters. (Gyeryongsan is the mountain just behind my apartment, which we all climbed back in autumn.) That disparity would haunt us.

We awoke at four o'clock in the morning, so we could make the six o'clock bus to Jinju, a town of some size two hours northwest of Geoje, at the veritable gates of the park. We had stayed up late the previous night, planning and calculating a route, as well as logistics like supplies, tents, sleeping bags, routes, maps, guidance, shelter, water, and so on. That meant that we got only four hours of sleep. We catnapped on the bus, but it didn't work out. I detest Korean buses, for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere, and this one was no exception. It lurched, swerved, and roared like a bull at a rodeo. But, finally we were deposited at the Jinju bus terminal, on an overcast but nonetheless dry day. Having forgotten to purchase bread the previous night, we were in possession of peanut butter and jelly but no sandwiches, which we'd planned to make in advance and eat on the trail. Fortunately, contemporary Korean culinary custom was on our side. We easily located a bakery, purchased bread, and sat down and made twelve hulking PBJs. The reason we had time to do this was because we missed the nine o'clock bus from Jinju to the trailhead at Jirisan, and we forced to wait one whole hour for the next run. After a one-hour bus ride (we were the only ones forced to put our enormous backpacks in the storage compartment, and there were several people aside from us who had 'em), we arrived at Jungsan-ri, a traditional village at the base of the mountains.

I'd love to be able to show you some photographs, but I can't, the intriguing explanation for which I shall divulge later on.

After first thinking that we'd come to the wrong spot (due to the large sign out in front of the convenience store that read SACHEONG instead of JUNGSAN-RI (the name of the district instead of the village), we got all set to go. Jeff relieved himself while I purchased a flashy red bandanna at the shop for ₩4,000. Then we hoisted our packs and set off up the hill to the trailhead proper.

We got a little bit lost at first; we followed what we thought was the trail instead of the road, and wound up in somebody's field; but we eventually came to the trailhead and the information center, where we got a map. By this time it was 11:30, but we were in possession of our PBJs and a map. We thought nothing could stop us. And so we climbed. The trail was intensely, and I do mean intensely, rocky and steep. There was hardly ever just a flat patch of dirt or trail to step on; 99% of the time we were clambering over rocks, jumping from rock to rock, or more often traversing them like staircases, so drastic was the incline.

There were some lovely sights to be seen along the way...Kalbawi, literally "Scissors Rock," split by the action of water and ice and now an enormous two-pronged monolith standing quietly in the verdant forest. Again, I took some pictures and would have shown you some here (instead of the one I borrowed), but I have not yet related to you the reason in its proper place.

Photo by Thomas A. Shepherd

The actual climb itself doesn't warrant further description. Suffice it to say that the forest was extraordinarily beautiful and multifarious, at times resembling a jungle with bamboo and ferns (whence tigers once roamed, and some say still do, not to mention the actual and elusive Korean bears who make this forest their home). At others times I might've been walking along any trail back home in the States, so familiar was the flora. A marvelous cool breeze began to rustle among the leaves as we ascended, and cooled our heated, sweaty brows as we toiled up and up the ridiculous slope. The bandanna I'd purchased was earning its keep; I'd wrapped it around my neck, where it was soaking up the torrential runoff from my head.

Eventually we made it four kilometers up the side of the mountain, to Beopgyesa, a Buddhist temple, and the Rotary Shelter nearby. It was two kilometers further to the summit. The trail, populated with people but not crowded, opened out to a clearing with trees, rocks, the shelter, the temple, and even a helipad (from which a small helicopter was busy going to and fro; we surmised that it was delivering supplies to the temple). All this was perched precariously on the side of the mountain. (This would have been a lovely place for a photograph.) There was a multitude of people here, resting, eating, and going to and fro. We found a big, flattish rock and spread out our lunch.

It was 4:30 already. We'd lost more time than we'd thought on the climb, and were already beginning to have doubts about our ability to reach the summit. Our plans kept changing, too. If we could get a room at the shelter, our success was assured; we could reach the summit and then retreat a mere two kilometers to safety. If the shelter was not open, we faced a difficult decision; turn back and camp at the foot of the mountain, whence was located the only camping site; or try our luck summiting anyway and trying to scout out a camping site for ourselves, which was not only iffy, but highly illegal. Things weren't looking good.

After we finished lunch we set off. I was nearing the end of my rope. My lungs were fine, but my legs felt like rubber. Each step became a trial in and of itself, where before only individual slopes had posed a challenge. Not long after departing the shelter, after a particularly brutal ascent (necessitating a climb over a steep boulder with the aid of a rope), we reached a vista. It was a flat table of rock overlooking the entire valley, including the ridges we'd traversed to get here, and the village vaguely visible in the distance. In the light of the sun (already descending quickly) it was sublime. I reached for my camera and discovered it wasn't there. The bag was intact, but the camera was nowhere to be found. I didn't know what else to do but go search for it, causing us another costly delay. Leaving Jeff at the vista with the backpacks, I forced my aching body into a headlong run back down the trail, casting my eyes to the side at every juncture for the missing appliance. I didn't find it. I became convinced I must've left it at the shelter where we'd had lunch; that was the last time I remembered having it. I had to stop and wait for the helicopter to take off before I could get back to the shelter, however...a delay inside of a delay, maddening. I was brought up short by a Korean in a red shirt and red gloves who held out a hand like a traffic cop. I looked up and noticed the helicopter was just on the hilltop above me, not thirty yards away, revving up to go. The noise and wind were tremendous. After a length of time that only seemed interminable, the whirlybird lifted off and I resumed my headlong dash along the trail. The camera was nowhere to be found at the shelter. I searched all around the rock, along the trail, everywhere. I even yelled out in Korean if anybody had seen a Fujifilm camera...? I got no reply. I got a few funny looks and then everybody went back to their business. Cursing Korean social customs, I resumed my run...back in the direction of Jeff and the backpacks. Along the way, pausing for a rest, panting, a trio of concerned middle-aged Koreans (who must've thought I was desperately trying to summit before sunset, and that I had reached the end of my endurance) stopped and told me there wasn't time, only increasing my distress. They even offered me water (I must've looked like hell), which I politely refused. I only resumed my run.

I found Jeff sitting on his hunkers looking contemplatively over the valley, his arms cupped in his hands as though he were cold. After some discussion we elected to keep going. We made it a few hundred yards further on up the excruciatingly steep and rocky trail before we met a Korean party coming back down from the summit. One of them spoke very articulate English, and so we asked him if there was time left yet to summit. He looked at his watch, told us he reckoned it was two hours to the summit from where we were...a definite no. We asked about buses back to Jinju and he said they were probably all gone. Jeff and I looked at each other, discussed our situation quietly, and then wisely elected to give up the summit. It would've been stupid to keep pushing ourselves in our condition, and it was pointless to reach the summit after dark anyway, not to mention that it would have made our descent infinitely more hazardous.

So we went back to the shelter, inquired about rooms; finding there were none, we punished our brains and our bodies (and Jeff's re-swelling ankle; he injured it a while back and it didn't heal right, and our climb had aggravated it) into descending all that steep and rocky way that night.

It was almost as bad, if not worse, than the ascent, and it seemed to take infinitely longer. My calves, thighs, knees and ankles went from smoldering and aching to numb and metallic. I began to view my task rock-by-rock; just get over this one, Andy. Just get over that one. My brain had been shut off. There was nothing in the world but the climb. Even my exhaustion and thirst took a backseat. We had plenty of water, but no matter how much I drank I was still thirsty. Gorp would not satisfy, even though we'd consumed lots of it on the trail up. We were rather depressed as well, seeing as how we'd failed to reach the top; such failures work subtle but insidious harm on a man's mind and ego. Eventually, though, we cheered up again.

To take our minds off our aches and pains (mental and physical) we started singing crude parodies of pop songs, all on the subject of gorp. Some of the less inane were: "Para comer la gorpa!" (La Bamba, Richie Valens) "Gorpin' with the deviiiiiiiiiiiiiil..." (Runnin' with the Devil, Van Halen) "I ain't sayin' she's a gorp digger, but she ain't messin' with no trail mix..." (Golddigger, Kanye West) In addition to this, we also came up with what seemed like truly witty gorp-related sayings to our sagging brains. Some exemplary gems were:

• Gorpin' it real
• Gorped out
• Gorpendous
• Gorptastic
• Gorptacular
• Gorpalicious
• Gorpin' on over

We were chuckling over these inanities all the way down the mountain. When we finally saw fit to commiserate about what had happened, we were in a considerably better mood. We discussed our failure and its likely causes. We determined that lack of time, lack of knowledge about what we were up against (ouch, ouch, ouch), and extenuating circumstances like forgotten bread and lost cameras had combined to defeat us. We were shrugging and sighing when Jeff's faced brightened up all of a sudden. And then he said:

"There's no use crying over spilled gorp."

That phrase, the absolute best of all the silly gorp-oriented parodies and plays-on-words we'd been tossing around, seemed to adequately sum up that entire day. I stopped dead in my tracks and laughed, right out loud. For the rest of the way down the trail, no matter how hard it was, we had but to remember that phrase and we were spurred on to new efforts. We'd realized the insignificance of the day's events in the big scheme of things, and knew we'd get another shot at it someday, forewarned and experienced...all with one little wordplay.

We made it down as darkness was falling. We inquired, in broken Korean, whether there were any buses left. Finding none, we caught a cab to Jinju, to the very bus station. We were feeling so tired that we didn't see much point in sticking around, so we caught the late bus back to Tongyeong, and got a cab from Tongyeong to Gohyeon. Splitting the cost between the two us, it didn't amount to much. We shook hands, promised ourselves there'd be a next time, walked to our respective apartments and fell into our beds like dead men.

And that was how we "climbed" Jirisan, at the cost of a camera, a few brain cells, and a few grams of gorp.