Simply the best weekend I've had in yonks!! Even if it started with our car breaking down 18km shy of the mountain. At 10pm at night. The locals helped us so much and all turned out OK.
Thanks so much to all the crew who showed up and did such an amazing job of everything. That is really a terribly beautiful area and a spectacularly scenic mountain to hike/ race. It was great to spend time with a different crew and get to meet some new faces from the south. Riann, Tamsin, Amanda, Chris, Dan, Bogue, Shari, Kevin and so on. You are all fantastic people, thanks for the great times. That we raised more than 500,000won for the orphanage is so cool too. Hats off again to Stuart for putting that together. Your guitar palying was likewise much appreciated and awesome mate.
The winner of the race, Bogue deserves special mention because to do that course in 2hrs 2 minutes is just insane. It was hard!!!
It was hot and it was friggin fast too. I was happy with my 5 hours
.
We also cleaned about 70L of trash from the hills as we went which drew lots of very vocal thanks and support from other hikers (bar the one guy we saw toss a full bag off a cliff!
).
Luke, Louise and Charles...sleeping an the "cloud bridge" above the void was so cool...you guys inspire the best in us all.
Post race we were lavishly feasted by Kyung Ah with Thai curry, rice and beers and had the slacklines, frisbee and other shenanigans to keep us from our much needed rest.
Sunday we headed over to the Yeong-Am Climbing Centre were we were made royally welcome by the locals and got in some amazing climbs...definitely a technical gym, even on the beginners routes, but great for technique and laughs....the route that we finished on...more horizontal than vertical (the roof was so long!!) just a classic scare/ laugh fest.
Then when we thought we'd seen it all and finished up Kabazoomee!
A local novice climber became untied from his TR and stuck 25 feet up hanging on for dear life. The really quick thinking of Charlie and co to drag over 6-8 mattresses below him whilst we spotted and sent a rescue climber up...well it was just amazing to see how well co-ordinated and speedily the thing was done. Climber rescued, and we all given a standing ovation for our part. Very relieved when it was over, very relieved indeed. I think we gave a pretty good impression of foreigners too overall, and that means a lot too.
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