Jirisan Mountain

I've been through 2-a-days football practice in 98 degree weather in 15 pounds of pads; I've been through an ACL reconstructive surgery and 6 months of rehabilitation; and I've had to be at work at 8am after a seriously long and horrible hangover but nothing, and I mean NOTHING was as challenging and difficult as climbing Jirisan Mountain. This weekend was supposed to consist of a ferrie trip, a sunny beach island, and beer with about 16 people. Those plans were changed when the weather decided to turn crappy on us and the ferrie was canceled. 7 of us decided to take our adventure to another climate and adventure. The weather was cool and I'm certainly glad I brought a thick UnderArmour (thank you Carl and Tessa), a sweat shirt, long johns, and sweat pants for the hike. It was kind of funny because almost every Korean I passed on the mountain they told me my running shoes were no good for the mountain and at times as I'm slipping off of some rocks, I believed them. Next time, IF there's a next time I'll make sure to get a pair of hiking boots. Ok so back to the struggle. My knees are horrible, have been since high school. My back is horrible, has been since high school and pulling it 4 days prior to climbing doesn't help the situation in the least. There were a couple of times on my hike up that I wanted to quit and turn around but I haven't quit anything in my life and I wasn't about to start now!

A bit about the positives of the trip. Jirisan is the tallest mountain in all of Korea. It was really cool being at the bottom of the mountain and looking at the peak of which our destination was the goal. As I mentioned it was a cool day in general and the bottom was comfortable. As we started to climb obviously things started to heat up. The sweat shirt had to come off but as we continued climbing the temperature dropped drastically so the sweat shirt came back on with the addition of gloves and a beany cap. The views were AWESOME! Being able to see everything completely covered in snow from one perspective and looking back to see greenery and waterfalls was breathtaking. I hope the pictuers and video can do some sort of justice so enjoy!

Video's go from top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right in order. SORRY FOR THE CUSSING! It's pretty funny now watching them seeing the progession of my "Get me off this moutainess"